Flying to the finish, ETNZ banked another win while Luna Rossa dealt with another breakdown.
  Image:©2013 ACEA/Photo: Gilles Martin-Raget
 

With the first two races of the Louis Vuitton Cup Finals marred by breakages, fingers were crossed for a race that would actually see two AC72s complete an entire race.  All began well in Race 3, with both Emirates Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa staying close on the race course and giving fans the picture they had been anticipating – two massive AC72s, foiling in close proximity as they sped across San Francisco Bay.

But the fragile nature of a developing yacht class reared its head again on Leg 2 when the Italians suffered structural damage at the base of their wingsail that put them out of the race, leaving the Kiwis to sail around the course alone to claim their series point.

In the pre-start, ETNZ’s Dean Barker hooked Luna Rossa’s Chris Draper, but Draper held his cool and turned in step with ETNZ, matching the Kiwis to the first mark.  ETNZ clearly surged ahead though as the two boats rounded.  Barker showed the team’s finesse with the big catamaran, maintaining the boat’s stability and foiling through gybes down Leg 2.  But near the top mark, Luna Rossa suddenly slowed as the control panel issue that had become a factor at the end of the day yesterday came back again to haunt the Italians.

The upper wind limit rules did give the Italians a helping hand, however, as consistent breeze over the 19.4 knot limit saw the second race of the day postponed without requiring that ITA use their one postponement-on-request permitted in the series.

Dean Barker Skipper, Emirates Team New Zealand

“It would be nice to get a couple of races where both boats made it all the way to the end.  These boats are very complex and hard to keep on the water and we can see every team dealing with issues.  Our guys are obviously very thorough in their preparation and checks but sometimes things just go wrong.  You have to learn from it.”

“But we were still racing hard.  We want to keep improving.  The goal is to be better than you are the day before and we want to keep doing that every day.  We've sailed three days in a row on numerous occasions.  It does really put a big toll on the shore crew, to make sure the boat is checked over, that all the systems are in place, but we knew this week would be hard, with the strong ebb time and the relatively low wind limits.  We knew Monday would be a back-up day, but we did think we would have four races done by today.  But as the week moves on we'll get into flood tide, which increases the wind limit, so we should be good to go as scheduled.”

Chris Draper Helmsman, Luna Rossa

“We tacked around the bottom mark and had an override on the winch sheet, which wasn’t a major issue, but then we damaged something on the control panel at the bottom of the wing – which would have happened very shortly thereafter anyway.  It is very frustrating.  We had a nice start, but we had one bad gybe downwind, which is irrelevant now.”

“We thought we’d be strong on the tight reach at the start and we executed our plan.  We just had one little crash after the start just after we got going – you get hit by a lull as the same time as you get rolling and it can stumble quite suddenly and that cost us dearly.  But our reaching speeds have gotten better and we actually believed we could beat these guys around a race and we started a nice job.”

Max Sirena Skipper, Luna Rossa

“We had a great start, Chris did a really good job.  The reaching leg and the downwind leg were good.  On port tack we were faster than them.  It was a bit of a surprise to us, we never thought we could be so close to them in total performance but we always try to push as much as possible, to put pressure on them.  Everything was going well until we had the breakdown on the wing.  I got so upset because I thought we could have a really good race today.”

“There are a few sheaves on the bottom of the wing, in the control panel.  The control cable is attached to the flaps that are coming down to the base and this sheave broke.  It is so frustrating because we want to do a full race.  The conditions are pretty tough for this boat they’re pretty fragile.  It’s the first generation so maybe if we continue with this boat, in the next Cup we will have fewer problems.  When it’s a new class, you always have breakdowns.  But I really am not surprised because we really are pushing the boat hard for the first time.”

“It’s hard for people to understand, but when you are sailing around the course alone, even in 20 knots, you are a little bit scared.  Anything can happen, like putting the bow down which happened to Team New Zealand.  Then, when you have another boat next to you, the scared goes away because you want to beat the other guy.  So you push way harder than normally and unfortunately, because we are sailing a new class of boat, there is a lot unknown and we discover that even in the race.  But there is no other choice, we go out and race, and if the boat breaks, it breaks.  If you are scared to break the boat, you should change jobs.”

-- Diane Swintal for CupInfo/©2013 CupInfo.com
 

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