August 25, 2012

 Oracle kept finding ways to get ahead Saturday.  Photo:©2012 Chris Cameron/ETNZ

From America's Cup Event Authority:

 Conditions conspired to create congested mark roundings, keeping the leaders in cleaner air.
  Photo:©2012 ACEA/Gilles Martin-Raget

Energy Wins, Spithill Dominates, Match Racing Final an All-USA Affair

After pitching a strike down the middle when he threw out the first pitch on America’s Cup day at the San Francisco Giants’ baseball game, Oracle Team USA’s Jimmy Spithill had a great day on the racecourse at the America’s Cup World Series on Saturday. 

Spithill started his afternoon with a win over his arch-rival, Dean Barker’s Emirates Team New Zealand, to advance to the Match Racing Final.  He followed it up with two strong fleet racing performances and leads the field heading into Sunday’s grand finale. 

“The first fleet race was probably the best one for us,” said Spithill, who broke the start line (OCS) before the signal.  “We were under a lot of pressure.  It was my fault for breaking the line, but every challenge I throw at these guys they somehow claw us back.  The key is when we get behind we fight the whole way around the track and the guys are rewarded for it.”

Yann Guichard’s Energy Team won the opening fleet race, coming from behind to pass Spithill and Barker late in the race and steal the win.  Spithill was second after being OCS while Barker, the early race leader, was forced to settle for third place after leading at the first four mark roundings. 

In the second race, a pile-up at the bottom gate allowed Spithill’s team on one side, and Team Korea on the other, to break free and escape the pack. 

Given a clear path, Spithill raced away, building the biggest lead of the week en route to his fourth win in six fleet races a dominant performance.  Team Korea’s Nathan Outteridge, more than one minute behind, recovered from a poor opening race with a second place finish, while Guichard, in third, posted his second podium finish of the afternoon to lift Energy Team into second place on the leaderboard. 

“Today was a big day for us.  It wasn’t easy because the wind is really shifty, but I’m so happy for my team because they did a fantastic job,” said Guichard.  “This morning we changed the setup of the headsail and found some extra speed.  It’s so much easier to have good tactics with good speed.”

The fleet racing concludes on Sunday with the seventh and final race of the Championship.  The Super Sunday race is weighted more heavily in the scoring, meaning at least four teams are in the mix to win the championship tomorrow. 

In the semifinals of the match racing championship, Oracle Team USA Coutts (Russell Coutts) sprinted off the starting line with a small lead that the veteran skipper was able to extend further on the first downwind leg.  But Terry Hutchinson’s Artemis Racing White narrowed the gap on the race upwind, closing right up to where the boats nearly collided at the top mark.  Coutts held his nerve, sailing over the top of the Swedish boat to lead through to the finish and a spot in the Final on Sunday. 

Coutts’ teammate, Spithill, then took the opportunity to make the Final an all Oracle Team USA affair by winning his match against Barker’s Emirates Team New Zealand.  Barker timed his run to the starting line to perfection, crossing at top speed on the inside track to the first mark.  The Kiwis led through the bottom gate, but Spithill chipped away with tiny gains up the next leg, before finally making the pass right at the top mark and holding on for a come-from-behind win. 

The AC Village at the Marina Green was bustling with an enthusiastic weekend crowd and the racecourse boundaries were marked by a large spectator fleet all afternoon.  After racing, a free concert by Dr. Dog closed Saturday’s activities in the race village. 

Coverage of Sunday’s racing begins at 11:30 am PDT and will be broadcast live around the world on the America’s Cup YouTube channel (subject to territorial broadcast restrictions).  On television, the Super Sunday finale will be broadcast live, coast to coast, in the United States, on NBC from 11:30 am PDT (there will be no live coverage in the United States on YouTube). 

AC World Series San Francisco Race Day Four
Match Racing Quarterfinals Results
Oracle Team USA Coutts beat Artemis Racing White, 1-0
Oracle Team USA Spithill beat Emirates Team New Zealand, 1-0

Match Racing Leaderboard (First and second to be determined on Sunday)
3.  Artemis Racing White
4.  Emirates Team New Zealand
5.  Energy Team
6.  Luna Rossa Piranha
7.  Luna Rossa Swordfish
8.  J.P. Morgan BAR
9.  Team Korea
10.  China Team
11.  Artemis Racing Red

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From Emirates Team New Zealand:

Emirates rounding Mark 1 in Fleet Race 5.  ENTZ started well, sometimes led, but slipped back by the finish in each race today.
 Photo:©2012 ACEA/Gilles Martin-Raget
 

Looking for Much Better

Emirates Team New Zealand finished the fourth day of the Americas Cup World Series regatta at San Francisco disappointed with the day’s results and looking for much better.

Grant Dalton says the team has started a debrief process to analyze why the team is not clicking as it should.  “This team is good at adapting to suit changing circumstances and that’s what we plan to do.”

“In San Francisco there are some obvious reasons.  Teams based here and have experience of the venue and local knowledge are at an advantage.  Teams with two or more AC45s have an advantage.  But they are not the only reasons.”

“Emirates Team New Zealand has put the bulk of its resources into the AC72 program and because of that we did not come to San Francisco expecting to blitz the fleet.  But we did expect to do much better than we have.  Twice today we had good leads and we were not able to finish them off.”

“We are looking at three elements venue, speed, and people combinations.  It’s unlikely to be just one of the three, more likely the problem lies across all three.”

Today’s racing:

In the match race semi-final, Dean Barker led from the start to the third gate.  It was always close.  Oracle 4 separated on the upwind leg, got a puff and was able to go into the gate at speed to round first but only seconds ahead.  Emirates Team New Zealand fought hard on the short downwind leg to mark 4 but could not pass.  Oracle 4's winning margin was 13s.

Barker got a dream start in the first fleet race, getting away cleanly at the committee boat end of the line and leading around the first mark. 

It was close all the way to the fifth gate with New Zealand under extreme pressure from Energy, Artemis White and then Oracle 4.  The breeze, lighter than on Friday, was shifty creating potential passing lanes.

Barker and crew Ray Davies, Glenn Ashby, Derek Saward and James Dagg beat off attack after attack until first Energy and then Oracle 4 slipped past on the approach to the fifth gate.

That was the finishing order Energy, with Oracle 4 16s back and Emirates Team New Zealand 32s followed by Luna Rossa Piranha, Luna Rossa Swordfish, Artemis White, Oracle 5, Team Korea, Artemis Red, JPM-BAR and China.

The second fleet race start was not quite so good.  New Zealand was caught in traffic at the first mark to round seventh, then moved up through the fleet on the right of the course on the down-wind leg approaching the bottom mark in third place.

The leaders Oracle 4 and Korea got through cleanly the rest of the fleet was caught in a traffic jam from which Emirates Team New Zealand emerged in 10th place.  This time there was no recovery and we finished ninth.

--©2012 Emirates Team New Zealand

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From Artemis Racing:

A lot of hard work from Artemis, but no wins Saturday. Photo:©2012 ACEA/Gilles Martin-Raget

Tough Day but Artemis Still in the Hunt

Today was Giants Day at the Americas Cup World Series with a full fleet sail by at the AT&T Giants Stadium before the Match Racing Semi-finals got underway, followed by two fleet races.

Terry Hutchinson and the crew on Artemis Racing White lined up against Oracle Team USA Coutts in the first match race.  Four-time Americas Cup winner, Russell Coutts won the pre-start and the AC45s battled around the course.  At the windward gate Coutts beat Hutchinson into the three boat length circle, protecting the American team from having to give way to Artemis on starboard.  Both boats sailed a good race, but the win went to Coutts who will now race stable mate Jimmy Spithill in the finals tomorrow.

“It was a tough day.  As we expected, Russell (Coutts) was feisty in the pre-start.  We left just a little too much room,” said Skipper Terry Hutchinson.  “In the fleet racing, we weren’t as quick today as we were yesterday.  It was about as shifty and as tricky as you see it on San Francisco Bay at this time of year.  Hats off to Jimmy and those guys who sailed well today.”

In the fleet racing, Artemis Racing - White took a 6th and 4th, while Artemis Racing Red was 9th and 11th.

Racing wraps up tomorrow with the Super Sunday final fleet race which counts for triple points.  “We definitely are in the hunt, it’s all to play for tomorrow,” said Dave Perry, Artemis Racings Rules Advisor.

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From Oracle Team USA

Photo:©2012 Guilain Grenier/Oracle Team USA

Primed for Super Sunday

Sunday’s match racing final will be an all-Oracle Team USA affair after helmsmen Russell Coutts and Jimmy Spithill each notched wins in the semis at the America’s Cup World Series in San Francisco on Saturday, Aug. 25.  Oracle Team USA Spithill followed with second- and first-place finishes in the day’s fleet races to hold onto the top spot on the leaderboard.

"This is the second event in a row that we've both made the final in match racing, so we're happy with that,” said Coutts.  “We defended well, and in a close match race it’s good to come out on top.  After the events of yesterday, I expect it to be a very aggressive race tomorrow.”

At the 2011-12 America’s Cup World Series finale in Newport, R.I., Oracle Team USA Coutts and Oracle Team USA Spithill also faced off, with Coutts coming out on top.  Coutts set the stage for a re-match on Sunday with a win vs. Artemis Racing White in the day’s first semifinal match.  In the second match, Oracle Team USA Spithill came from behind, passing Emirates Team New Zealand heading into the third gate, to win.

Spithill and crew continued to dominate the fleet racing, even after taking a penalty on off the start in the first of the day’s two races.  Oracle Team USA Spithill made up ground to sit in the lead just past mid-way on the course, but Energy Team pulled ahead to win the first by just 16 seconds.

In the second fleet race the penultimate of seven fleet races on the ACWS schedule this week Spithill took the lead around the second mark.  He gradually extended to open a wide gap and finish 1 minute, 11 seconds ahead of second-place Team Korea.  Oracle Team USA Spithill has 61 points in the fleet standings, with Energy Team in second with 48.

“We put a big emphasis on boat handling in this regatta, and I think it’s showed,” said Spithill.  “Every day you go out sailing you sharpen your skills and get better, and JK [John Kostecki] just had another fantastic day.  We're really having a blast sailing out in front of these crowds.  We have thousands of people down here cheering us on -- it’s awesome.”

Oracle Team USA Coutts finished seventh and sixth in the day’s two fleet races, respectively, to sit in eighth place overall with 29 points in the fleet standings.

"Russell is still not talking to me,” Spithill joked as he looked ahead to Sunday’s match racing final.  "He's got plenty of incentive from yesterday, so it will be like a bare-knuckle brawl out there.”

The Super Sunday match racing final begins at 11:45 AM PDT.  The fleet race follows at 12:15 PM PDT with bonus points available for the final race, opening the door for the potential of big changes on the leaderboard.

Tune in to race action throughout the week on the America’s Cup YouTube channel (subject to territorial broadcast restrictions).  On television in the U.S., coverage is available Thursday through Saturday in the Bay Area on NBC Bay Area 11.2, and in California on Comcast SportsNet California.  The Sunday finale will be broadcast live, coast to coast in the United States, on NBC from 11:30 AM PDT.

CREW LISTS

Oracle Team USA Spithill:
Jimmy Spithill (skipper/helmsman), John Kostecki (tactician), Dirk de Ridder (wingsail trimmer), Joe Newton (headsail trimmer), Piet van Nieuwenhuijzen (bowman)

Oracle Team USA Coutts:
Russell Coutts (skipper/helmsman), Murray Jones (wingsail trimmer), Shannon Falcone (trimmer), Kinley Fowler (trimmer), Sam Newton (bowman)

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From J.P.Morgan/Ben Ainslie Racing

Photo:©2012 Jon Nash/J.P. Morgan/BAR

Ben Ainslie Blog: Any Mistakes Get Amplified

We might not be climbing up the leader board but I think we have been making good progress this week, it’s just difficult to see that from the outside I guess.  But I’m starting to understand more about the handling of these boats and appreciating how tricky they are.  One of the big lessons is timing.

The difference with an AC45 and say a modern sportsboat is that any mistakes get amplified.  Normally if you have a bad gybe you might lose a couple of boat lengths, but in an AC45 it could cost you around five or even ten boat lengths.  That’s where you see the biggest differences on the race course and it comes down largely to boat handling, in particular at my end of the boat.

I’m still learning where to put the boat and when, to help the guys make things happen.  I felt things went much better today than yesterday and I felt happier that I was making some progress.  One example is the weather mark rounding and the point at which we deploy the gennaker.  That might sound obvious and a simple thing to sort out, but at the speeds that were traveling at the apparent wind speed is so much higher than on a conventional boat and the wind angle is changing so quickly that the timing is crucial.  Get it right and the sail snaps into action immediately and you’re off like you’ve hit the turbo button.  Get it just slightly wrong and the crew spend the next 30 seconds grinding in the gennaker while your competition drags out more distance on you.

In some ways it’s similar to tacking a big overlapping headsail on a heavy displacement boat.  Get it wrong and you’re grinding forever, going slowly and burning out your crew.  Get the timing and technique right and it all looks easy.

Among the many things I’ve learned this week it’s become crystal clear that sailing these boats efficiently is so much about technique.

The trouble is that in a race like today when we were making step by step progress in boat handling and timing, it only takes a small incident to wipe out any of the progress we’d made. 

A good example of that was in the second race when we got caught up with Artemis Red.  They had wrongly identified the leeward mark and were about to round it the wrong way and were calling rights on us.  For a few seconds there was a fair bit of confusion on their part and we ended up having to take avoiding action, which nearly saw us collide with one of the Luna Rossa boats.  It was all pretty close and a perfect example of how quickly things can go badly wrong when you’re traveling at high speed, even though it’s not your fault.

Yes I'd love to be posting better results, I’m a competitive guy but we have to be realistic.  Sometimes you have to backwards to go forwards and while I don’t think we are going backwards, I appreciate sometimes it might look like that we’re not making progress.

But as we get to the end of this week I’m happy that we’ve been able to start learning the basics which gives us a good footing on which to start developing our own techniques.

Thanks for the support,

Ben

Tomorrow is Sunday, August 26 -- Super Sunday!

Format:
Match Racing final
1 30-minute fleet race

Match Racing Final: Port Stbd Start
Match Racing Final: US-S US-C 1145

Sunday Fleet Racing Start
Fleet Race 7 at 12:15 pm

The Super Sunday finale will be broadcast live, coast to coast, in the United States, on NBC from 11.30am PDT.  Racing will also be shown live at 22:00 GMT on Sky Sports 4HD on Sunday and broadcast live around the world all week on the Americas Cup YouTube channel.

Weather forecast
Skies could be slow to clear Sunday with Southwest winds in the 9-14 knot range forecast for race time at 11:45.  Winds should build throughout the race period to 12-17 knots.

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