Louis Vuitton Cup Semi Final Race 2 Live
This sequence shows why New Zealand / Luna Rossa design approach is the most versatile and fully optimized for a high wind venue like San Francisco.
This gybe pitch while floating is already tough, but adding two meters height to the bow to accelerate at 35knots it is even harder, in fact it cannot get any tougher than this. But Luna Rossa went through it as nothing happened and although Chris Draper and crew are showing some nice handling, once the bow goes down there is an instance where you don´t have control and you must rely on the design.
I cannot see Oracle going that easy on a similar situation. Check this sequence video replay at youtube.com/watch?v=MY_5VpnkbfM#at=3353
Luna Rossa won with ease again , but this time they made too many tactical errors like extra gybes to in rounding marks, that against New Zealand will cost too much.
Artemis had another good start but they simply can´t foil as soon as LR and with the wind lighter than yesterday it was game over too soon. But Artemis kept pushing upwind again and they gain 1 full minute at the second upwind mark. A good sign of how far two teams with a more even performance can achieve from behind.
Artemis crew has too much handicap , the commentators talked about it and I have the same data from a third party, Artemis is too heavy and their winglets too small. Hope they can get the high end wind conditions for next two races, that will give them some chance.
Full Race replay below.