Two reasons: first, the Louis Vuitton finals showed that all but one race was won by the team who prevailed in the start box. The teams have now sorted out their hardware and software and have learned to sail the fast foiling monohulls better.
These giant yachts leave behind huge dead patches of “dirty” air, so much so that the trailing yacht’s only hope on this course is to head off and hope to catch a significant wind shift.
Second, Team New Zealand skipper Peter Burling is not always at his best in the start box. Those close to the team say he can lose concentration and make mistakes in the pre-start, as evidenced by some of his SailGP form.
Some describe his starting skills as “a bit random; he goes walkabout in his head sometimes”, though that will be balanced by the presence of crack fellow helmsman Nathan Outteridge.
There is, perhaps, a third reason: the huge improvement in the speed, stability and consistency of Britannia and the aggressive moves of skipper Sir Ben Ainslie.
When the pre-regatta and the Louis Vuitton Cup began, Britannia looked slow; the sailing team were all over the shop, giving away sloppy penalties, with the boat often falling off its foils.
The transformation has been remarkable. Before it, there was talk that Ainslie, 47, had been at the helm too long and should maybe give way to a younger man.
Now, however, Ainslie has found his groove and his replacement of the popular and skilled helmsman Giles Scott with new co-helmsman Dylan Fletcher has proved highly successful.
Ainslie’s pedigree is unsurpassed, at least in Olympic terms; he is the most successful sailor in Olympic history, winning medals in five successive Games (four of them gold), plus 11 World Championship golds.
He was formerly a member of Team NZ, as a tactician, and served in that role for Oracle Team USA when they pulled off that amazing comeback to beat Team NZ in San Francisco in 2013, so he’s won (or more correctly, defended) the America’s Cup as well.
Long-time America’s Cup regatta director Iain Murray has seen a lot of challenges (and sailors) come and go and told Reuters this week that Ainslie is favoured to win the starts: “You’d have to say, if you’re putting money on it, that the odds are that Ben will probably have an advantage at the start.”
Murray, 66, has been involved in eight America’s Cup events, four as a competitor and four in race management and called Ainslie “unpredictable”, “ruthless” and a “hard-to-handle” sailor.
“That’s all been part of his success over a very long period of time, so the Kiwis are going to have to handle and manage that.”
The other big surprise has been the gain in speed by Britannia. Their hull shape has seemed to help them, as has their ability to ride high on the foils.
The hull helps them cut through choppy seas when the wind is blowing and, while it was popularly supposed they were slow in light airs, they managed to beat Luna Rossa in the Louis Vuitton Cup finals when those conditions were in play.
Most are putting that down to the link with the Mercedes Formula One team and a new feature in America’s Cup yachting – software updates.
After races and training sessions, these enormously high-tech boats and teams send data off for analysis, in Britannia’s case back to the UK where the Mercedes team quickly pore over it and then instantly update the software to improve performance, tweaking matters like foils and foil flaps in a sport where a tiny change can mean a big difference.
Before the teams head out on the water, they have pre-programmed the yachts according to the conditions, modifying them for upwind, for example, though the skippers can change the settings on the water.
Ainslie, after Britannia beat Luna Rossa in one race, was quick to apportion credit to the software update, saying it had made a real difference.
It is maybe another reason for the wholesale change in Britannia’s fortunes from the pre-regatta and the early days of the Louis Vuitton Cup racing, when Britannia were a candidate for the first team to be eliminated, along with France’s Orient Express and the Swiss boat, Alinghi. In those early days, there was, according to sailing circles, a rift or at least a difference of opinion between Britannia’s marine team and the Mercedes team – but that now seems to have been overcome.
All that said, Emirates Team NZ have, from all accounts, a very fast boat; the old adage of the America’s Cup is that it is always won by the fastest boat. From its performance in the pre-regatta and Louis Vuitton Cup, Taihoro looks to be maybe the most manoeuvrable of all the AC75s – meaning tacks and gybes can be pulled off with alacrity, a powerful weapon in this class.
However, the start remains vital and there seems nothing more certain than Taihoro will lose races to Britannia. Just how many will, after racing starts on Saturday, determine whether the Cup returns to Britain for the first time, since the competition’s inception way back in 1851 – yes, you read that right – or whether it will return to the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron.
