Top left: hard to credit that Australian-born racer Nathan Outteridge sat on the bench during the last Cup where he did, though, prove to be an outstanding TV commentator. This time, however, with the move to twin-helmsmen, it must have taken Pete Burling (top right) at least five seconds to know who to call, the pair having traded Olympic medals between them over 10 years racing 49ers. Above: Luna Rossa swept the board in both the Youth and Women’s America’s Cup; the Italian women did ‘proper thrilled’ after the final race. And the Youths… for brilliant young Marco Gradoni the only surprise would have been not to win. Ben Ainslie (above) was the only Cup helm without a 49er Olympic gold medal… but that’s not to say that he doesn’t have other Olympic metalware of his own
when New Zealand streaked out to a 4-0 lead. But, as Ainslie’s game-face became more grimly drawn, a brace of wins in choppy conditions on Day 4 closed the gap to 4-2. Two pre-start mistakes had revealed the first chinks in the Kiwi arsenal. Ainslie and his crew seized their opportu- nity and grasped the momentum tilt. ‘The comeback is on,’ Ainslie declared. Comeback is a word that haunts New
Zealand fans – ever since Oracle Team USA broke their hearts in 2013 with that extraordinary march from 8-1 down to a 9-8 victory in San Francisco. Ainslie served as skipper, Jimmy Spithill’s tactician in that epic clash and knew all too well that the comeback taunt would cut deep. Ineos Britannia’s two wins on Day 4
represented another milestone. They were the first British victories in a Cup Match in 90 years, equalling in a single day Britain’s best ever Cup showing over the past 173 years. At 4-2 the Barcelona Match was heating up. The game now was which of
48 SEAHORSE
the two teams could continue ratcheting up incremental developments, both in the software war and racecraft. ‘The changes we have made have been
positive,’ said Dylan Fletcher, who was a last-minute replacement for Giles Scott as Britannia’s port helmsman. ‘We are going faster now than we were in the Louis Vuitton final and we were faster today than we were in Race 1 of the America’s Cup. It feels like we have found more per- formance than the New Zealanders since Race One and hopefully we can continue that trajectory.’ ETNZ trimmer Andy Maloney countered
that both teams were constantly making fine detail improvements as the series progressed and would continue to do so. ‘A lot of it comes down to the pre-starts and executing manoeuvres really well,’ he said. ‘It is not straightforward conditions out there. It is about trying to get the right spots of pressure, choosing the right shifts and when to cover and when not to cover.
There is a lot going on that can make a much bigger difference than the speed of the boats.’ In this respect a distinctive feature of the
British design lay in its more voluminous hull shape. It coped well in the boisterous wave conditions of the windier Louis Vuitton Cup series. Britannia also looked more sure-footed than the Kiwi boat when lumpy wave-states combined with the lighter winds that came into play during the Cup Match – when the sea-breeze con- ditions of summer gave way to softer, shiftier winds as cooler autumn tempera- tures took hold. It was definitely a factor in its dominant
double-victory day, with 1m waves creating stumbling blocks across the course. A Barcelona peculiarity is that the wave patterns frequently do not align with the wind direction, which can trip boats off their foils and contributed to New Zealand’s expensive pre-start fumbles in Races 5 and 6.
GILLES MARTIN-RAGET
MARTINA ORSINI
JASON LUDLOW
JASON LUDLOW
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