Americas Cup at Cascais: Day 3, Match Racing

Photo: Alex Udin – Artemis at Cascais

Day 3: Fleet Races and Match Racing between Teamn New Zealand vs Oracle Spithill For more videos check www.youtube.com/user/AmericasCup

Results : www.americascup.com/en/Events/2011-2012-world-series/2011-cascais-portugal/Results-and-Highlights

Great day of racing for the AC45.

Good late conditions with lots of changes on the lead plus some handling errors.

Team NZ was dead last on the 3rd race for being over (at least they thought so) , but ended winning over Korea that made a really good regatta.

Team Energy slowly getting used to the AC45/Wing (they’ve tested for the first time in Cascais as some other teams) , Loick Peyron being quite happy with two 3rd places but always humble and recognizing they need more time.

The bad news for the top teams, Oracles, TNZ and Artemis, with several more hours than the rest is that they don´t have a definitive lead, of course they are more consistent but the speed and handling is already there for Peyron/Energy, Booth/China and Draper/Korea.

And with two more years things will get pretty even at SF.

No wonder Mitch and Loick are doing well with so little time on these boats. For ie the Peyron bought two dnas A-Class for training, and they are already multihull specialist. And I checked that Charlie Ogletree (Tornado Olympic silver ) is part of China team too along Pim, nice second line to support boss Mitch.

What left for other guys on the cup for their learning catamaran curve if you have the specialist training that hard?

Until now no 20knots races, when this fleet start racing on those conditions the differences will be even bigger between the top (on training time or talent) teams and the rookies.

Boat handling will become crucial and experience will pay big time.

On the final Match Race some myths were debunked like “Once in the lead is over” , “Oracle has too much advantage on multis and wings” and other bitter bad vibes from the naysayers and multihaters.

I’ve seen this week two sad examples : Saturday the race was delayed and a mono sailing site published a picture of Coutts with a bad face and floating in no wind with some poor comments on it, 1 hour later the AC45s were flying in 3knots?? Sorry about that gaffe…

Then today someone pointed “no wind at Cascais, where are the fatest boats and the best sailors, lol” … 1 hour later the fleet races were starting in pretty good conditions flying a hull with good speed.

I feel sorry for these people, really. Beyond multi or mono… bad vibes that ended crashing on their own created bitterness wall.

Check the replays, this is Sailing and Catamaran Racing at its Best.-