Louis Vuitton America's Cup Qualifiers:
Race Day 5 - Round Robin 2
Wednesday, May 31
Postponed

Pairings - Race Day 5:
(Update 4:00 pm) Race have been rescheduled to Thursday due to light wind.
First Race start signal at 2:08 pm local time.
Four Matches

Round Robin 2:
R4: JPN vs. FRA
R5: GBR vs. NZL
R6: USA vs. JPN
R7: FRA vs. GBR

Weather:
Wind light 4-6 knots and variable.

Race 4:
Softbank Team Japan (JPN) vs. Groupama Team France (FRA)
Start scheduled for 2:08 pm.  Update 4:00 pm, racing postponement with light winds.

See Round Robin Results and Standings:

Louis Vuitton America's Cup Qualifiers:
Race Day 5 - Round Robin 2
Thursday, June 1

Pairings - Race Day 5:
Races are rescheduled from Wednesday.
First Race start signal at 2:08 pm local time.
Four Matches

Round Robin 2:
R4: JPN vs. FRA
R5: GBR vs. NZL
R6: USA vs. JPN
R7: FRA vs. GBR

Weather:
Wind SW 6-7 kts. 77d F, cloudy (ACEA). Wind SW 6-7 kts (WindGuru).  Wind WSW 7-8 kts  (Wunderground).

Race 4:
SoftBank Team Japan vs. Groupama Team France
Course shortened to 6 legs from the typical 7 of the Qualifiers to date.
Start ontime. Racing in 7 knots, of wind, occasionally foiling. JPN led the whole way. FRA has difficulty staying on foils. SoftBank Team Japan wins R4 by a big margin, 5:59 (unofficial).

Race 5:
Land Rover/BAR vs. Emirates Team New Zealand
Good early start for GBR but they gybe badly following a tussle with NZL, fall off foils.  NZL foiling full-time gets out to a huge lead, while GBR struggles in the light air.  GBR tries to push NZL on port-starboard encounter despite being on different legs, but no penalty.

GBR stuck in nearly dead calm at one end of the course as NZL is doing 22kts at the other end, nearly 26 kts of boatspeed in 6 kts of wind.  NZL's light air foils and experience seem to be a generation ahead, and light air boat handling is elevated, too.  Emirates Team New Zealand will win Race 5.  GBR, still a leg back, radios in that they will retire. It's academic in any case, as they were unlikely to make the 5:00 delta cutoff.

Ben Ainslie, Skipper, GBR:
On retiring: "We knew we had a big race against Groupama Team France coming  up. So we decided to pull out and give our engineers, our technicians, the chance to get in there, fix the issue -- which they did a fantastic job as always -- and got us back racing and got us through that final race."

Race 6:
Oracle Team USA vs. SoftBank Team Japan
Start time will be slight delayed waiting for prior race to clear, wind to settle.  Start coming 3:33 pm.  Winds 6-8 knots at the starting box. USA is later to the line, JPN gets them into a dial-up, chasing them out.  USA fails to enter the starting box, by the -1:00 deadline, is penalized.  Good lead for JPN at the gun and around the first mark 24 seconds ahead.  JPN can't lay the gate and has to sail extra distance, giving USA a chance to close the gap.  8 second delta at the downwind gate.  JPN turn right, sailing across the gate, while USA makes a cleaner rounding turning left.  Both to the boundary and coming back USA is doing a bit better on starboard, slicing the lead to 60m. JPN gets some it back when they tack.  Both turn left at the upwind gate, delta 21 seconds.  Downwind one long gybe, lead steady, JPN gybes and lays the righthand gate.  USA gybes unexpectedly early, has to take an additional gybe to get to the lefthand side of the gate.  They round 22 seconds behind.  Angle upwind is favoring starboard again, Oracle barely behind at the cross but taking the lead.  JPN onto starboard, too, 40m lead for USA.  Oracle goes to the starboard layline, has a good angle into the gate.  JPN tacks near the gate at the port layline, is a bit downspeed.  JPN takes the righthand gate, too, but USA is opening a bit lead in the meantime.  35 seconds at the final windward gate. JPN making some gains as USA is slow after their gybe, but not enough to give JPN the lead.  Still 33 seconds behind.  Oracle Team USA will win Race 6.  Final delta is 33 seconds.

USA's extra gybe looked like a mistake, but it set them up to take a long starboard tack on the upwind leg, which brought them the lead.  JPN's slow rounding at the top of the leg dug the hole deeper.  Their small gains downwind might have mattered if they had been a little closer, but the race was out of reach after the upwind gate.

Dean Barker, Skipper, JPN:
"We had a good win against Franck [Cammas] and his guys and we had a good first half again, against Oracle, but obviously disappointing to let that race slip away, after, I guess, getting out of phase at the last bottom gate, but it's part of racing."

Race 7:
Groupama Team France vs. Land Rover/BAR
Port/Starboard penalty to FRA in pre-start. France holding tight to GBR on Leg 2, passing them downwind. Both gybe, FRA finds speed first, leads into the downwind gate.  GBR follows them around, then tacks away.  Boats are trying to get up on foils, FRA on starboard head at the cross now.  Coming back together, GBR on starboard with FRA tacking underneath their line, GBR rolling over them to lead around the gate.  France foils first and passes GBR downwind again. Onto the final upwind leg, for an upwind finish, GBR splits away, FRA not covering.  FRA leads at the cross and GBR splits again, to the right.  FRA goes to the left layline.  Both may have trouble laying the finish.  FRA has to dip as GBR hunts them. They both pinch for the finish line and GBR wins.  Final delta is 23 seconds.

Louis Vuitton America's Cup Qualifiers:
Race Day 6 - Round Robin 2

Pairings - Race Day 6:
First Race start signal at 2:08 pm local time.
Four Matches

R8: NZL  vs. JPN
R9: SWE vs. USA
R10: NZL vs. FRA
R11: JPN vs. SWE

Weather:
Wind SSW 9-10 kts, gusts to 13-14, 78d F, sunny (ACEA).  Wind SSW 10 kts, gusts to 14 (WindGuru). Wind 13 kts SW (Wunderground).

Race 8:
Emirates Team New Zealand beats SoftBank Team Japan

Race 9:
Artemis Racing beats Oracle Team USA

Race 10:
Emirates Team New Zealand beats Groupama Team France

Race 11:
Artemis Racing beats SoftBank Team Japan

Upshot:
Three things come out of the Qualifiers:  a) the lowest placed challenger goes home; b) the highest placed challenger gets to choose their Semi-Final opponent; and c) the highest team overall (challenger or defender) will carry a points advantage into the America's Cup match.

a) Lowest Place Challenger Eliminated:
With their loss today, Groupama sitting on two points has no chance to pass Artemis or Japan, who will finish the day either 1 or 2 points ahead of France. By virtue of finishing last in the LV ACWS season standings, the French would lose any tie-break situation. Even if they won their one remaining race ,Saturday against Artemis, France could not get ahead of the tie-break that goes against them. Sadly, Franck Cammas and Groupama Team France, who provided several exciting races in the Qualifiers, will be out of the event after tomorrow.

b) Highest Placed Challenger:
Emirates Team New Zealand locked this up.  Now for the debate: should NZL pick GBR, SWE, or JPN as their Semi-Final opponent?  Historically the strategies for this pick in challenger selection regattas have varied. One school of thought is to pick the team that looks slowest, expecting to have the easiest chance to get to the Final. Another point of view is to pick the team that looks fastest at the present, intending to knock them out before they get even faster.

c) Highest Placed Challenger or Defender:
If a challenger is the highest ranked team in the qualifiers, and NZL is currently leading, they would earn a points advantage in the America's Cup Match, should that team advance so far. In that situation, the defender, USA, would begin the series with a score of minus one point in a first-to-seven-points series. But this advantage would only run with NZL, not another challenger.  Oracle Team USA, as the sole defender, is of course guaranteed to race in the America's Cup Match.  So if Oracle Team USA wins the qualifiers overall, then any challenger would begin the series with a score of minus one against the defender.

New Zealand currently leads 8 to 7 going into the final day of the round, but Oracle Team USA owns the tie-break owing to the Louis Vuitton ACWS finish order.  So New Zealand has to finish a point ahead of Oracle in order to claim the points advantage.

USA races NZL and GBR on Saturday. NZL races only USA to finish out their RR2. So Race 12 will be the Match of the Day on Saturday, potentially having a direct effect on how the America's Cup Match plays out.

Also see:
2017 America's Cup Event Format | RR1 & RR2 Standings