The America's Cup 2013; a guest post

Quintin Hogg is a regular visitor to Keeping Stock, and a semi-regular commenter. We've met him several times, and shared a couple of meals. And we know that when he leaves his office, he is a mad-keen sailor.

So we asked him for a yachtie's perspective of the America's Cup match series between Oracle and Emirates Team New Zealand. The syndicates go head-to-head in San Francisco tomorrow morning in the first race of the best-of-seventeen contest. Here's his guest post:

The Americas Cup Match September 2014

KS asked me to give my opinion as a sailor of the Americas Cup which starts NZ Time at 8.15 am on Sunday 9 September 2013.

I thought about waxing lyrical about the AC72’s, the teams (or lack of), the crews, the shenanigans, and the venue but the reality is that all that stuff is easily available online or in the print media so anything I say would only repeat what others have said more capably.

So what follows is, in brief, what I think about the event.  It is the opinion of a bloke with some modest experience as a sailor and as a race management volunteer including helping with the 2000 and 2003 defences.

I grew up with a sailing obsessed father. I grew up with the cup and NZ’s involvement.  Until the responsibilities of fatherhood landed on my shoulders I was sailing obsessed, going out on the water on average 3 times a week. 

The cup has for me been an emotional rollercoaster.  Despair in 1987.  Hope in 1992, Joy in 1995 and 2000.  Anger, later on, in 2000. Despair again in 2003 and 2007. And now hope again in 2013.

The most interesting feeling is dread.  I don’t know who is faster of the two boats that contest the Americas’ Cup on Sunday. 

We knew, sort of that NZL 32 was faster in 1995.  Again we were confident that we had the measure of Luna Rossa in 2000. The boats in 2003 had similar speed but the TNZ boat had frailties and in 2007 the word was that Alinghi had a boat that was a click faster, but even then TNZ only lost 5-2 (and one of those losses by 1 second if that). So we had an idea of the relative merits of each competitor.

I suspect that Grant Dalton is right when he says he doesn’t know. Oracle is said to be fast.  I know that Aotearoa is fast.  The telemetry data from their races is available online.  We will only know on Sunday who is faster.

Which bring me back to dread and I suppose anticipation.  If Oracle is faster then ETNZ have a problem.  Why? The course is short.  The races are completed within 45 minutes.  There are not that many passing lanes even if you can foil upwind at 30knots.  So I don’t know. No-one does.  We have to wait and see.

My hope is an evenly contested match with ETNZ beating Oracle on the water and leaving the shenanigans that have been recorded elsewhere behind.  And if ETNZ wins then "yahoo" for two or three days and then the hard work begins to build an event. 

If ETNZ are not successful well they deserve congratulations.  They have been innovative and creative. They have been an advertisement for NZ beyond anything we have previously had including the AB’s.

My heart says ETNZ will win.  My head would like to.

We thank Quintin Hogg for sharing his thoughts with us. In 24 hours time we will have an idea whose boat is faster, and where the next America's Cup regatta will be held. Here's hoping that it is in Auckland.

Fixing the AC72

It's hardly surprising that Emirates Team New Zealand's AC72 catamaran suffered some damage with its nosedive in the first Louis Vuitton finals race yesterday.

But that's where the shore crew comes to the fore; check this out:

That's a brief but fascinating insight of what goes on behind the scenes on San Francisco. And there's one area where we would always expect the Kiwis to come to the fore; teamwork. 

Grant Dalton runs a tight ship (pardon the nautical pun), and the shore crew seems to have done a stellar job in getting the Big Black Boat back out on the water for racing today; great stuff.

Team New Zealand's lucky escape

We've been out for most of the morning; church, then a pleasant lunch with friends. As we were driving home, She Who Must Be Obeyed commented to us that the first race in the Louis Vuitton Cup finals series was on this morning, and she wondered who'd won.

So we went online, and we discovered that Emirates Team New Zealand won the first race of the best-of-thirteen series, but not without incident; check this out:

Things could have very quickly gone pear-shaped for Dean Barker and his crew this morning; Stuff reports:

Team New Zealand skipper Dean Barker said his crew were shaken but relieved after losing two members overboard in a dramatic opening win in the Louis Vuitton Cup final against Luna Rossa today.
Grinders Rob Waddell and Chris Ward went over the side as Aotearoa dug its bows in rounding the third mark on the foils, burying the 72 foot catamaran up to the main crossbeam.
Wadell and Ward were collected by the chase boat and weren't injured.
Team New Zealand continued to the finish line to claim the first point in the best of 13 series in San Francisco.
The second race of the day was postponed as winds got up beyond the limit of 19.7 knots. That gave Luna Rossa a lifeline as they had earlier withdrawn from the first race with a major problem to their right centreboard that couldn't be fixed in time to race again.
But all the drama surrounded the spectacular accident and recovery by Team New Zealand.
"The single biggest thing is you think what has happened ... we are very thankful that all the guys are OK," Barker said.
"I think everyone is a little shaken. But again, it's yacht racing and it's this type of sailing - it's pretty full on."
Barker put the mishap down to human error and the sheer grunt of these massive cats. The Kiwis have been the masters of performing this difficult manoeuvre but as they have always maintained, they are only a second away from disaster. 

ETNZ came within a whisker of disaster this morning. It reinforces that the AC72 boats are running right to the limit, and at times beyond; to paraphrase the old line that may or may not have come from Star Trek (it's the subject of much debate!), "It's sailing Jim, but not as we know it".

But a win is a win is a win, and ETNZ is now just six more wins away from the America's Cup match against Oracle. We wish them well.

Photo of the Day - 30 July 2013

Emirates Team New Zealand is now going to take a break until the Louis Vuitton finals. But yesterday they had a Top Gun guest; Stuff reports:

Team New Zealand are clearly the top guns at the America's Cup regatta and today they got Hollywood star Tom Cruise on board their giant catamaran for a spin around the San Francisco Bay.
Cruise and his adopted son Connor were guests of Emirates Team New Zealand for their final Louis Vuitton Cup round-robin race against Luna Rossa Challenge.
They watched the Kiwis' victory from the team's VIP vessel, Imagine, and afterwards the pair suited up in full sailing gear and jumped aboard the team's race boat, Aotearoa.
The Cruises joined the 11-man crew on the giant AC72 and helped on the winches to trim the rig and sails. They even got their hands on the wheel, taking over from skipper Dean Barker for a spell steering the boat.
 "We were very fortunate to have Tom Cruise and his son jump on board for a ride around San Francisco Bay. They had an absolute ball," Barker.
 "We had a nice reach back under the Bay Bridge, so Tom jumped on the handle bars (steering wheel) and did a better job than I did.
"He had a competition with his son to get the top speed. It was a real boost for the team to have someone like him come along." 

ETNZ's AC72 might not be a supersonic jet fighter, but in marine terms it's an impressive beast. The publicity from having Cruise and his son along for a ride will certainly help the profile both of the America's Cup and ETNZ.

Here's hoping though that Cruise left all Scientology literature at home!
 

Another America's Cup farce

As if things weren't already farcicial enough, the America's Cup descended further yesterday; the Herald reports:

It could have been complete farce. Luna Rossa raced against themselves yesterday - but should not have won.
The Italians completed their solo sail, scoring their second point of the Louis Vuitton regatta - but were so slow the race should have been abandoned.
They took 43 minutes and six seconds to complete the shorter, 5-leg course on San Francisco Bay. The only problem was the minimum time allowed by America's Cup rules was 40 minutes.
If neither boat in the race finishes within 40 minutes on that course, the race has to be abandoned and sailed again. With opponent Artemis' boat still in the shed, Luna Rossa raced alone.
To be fair, the fact that they didn't complete the course in time was not down to the boat or the crew. Wind conditions were down, the lightest of the regatta so far - not exactly gentle zephyrs but at times the breeze hovered close to the minimum allowable limit of five knots and gusted only to 13 knots.
The fault - if there ever can be one in a one-boat race - was down to the race committee.

They somehow failed to detect that the race had not taken place in the required time parameters and neglected to abandon it. Instead of forcing the issue, an attack of commonsense broke out and the "race" result was allowed to stand.
Requiring Luna Rossa to race against themselves because they were too slow against themselves would have seemed the height of lunacy.

Rules are rules, surely, and there should be a protest at this flagrant breach by the officials. But who should protest? Should Luna Rossa argue that they should not be awarded a point? Will Artemis, unable to make it to the start line as they boat gets final repairs, protest their rivals being awarded the point for not being able to beat themselves? Or will Grant Dalton be writing to the international jury?

We jest, of course. But what the Herald describes as "an attack of commonsense" is rare in America's Cup competition, where the team with the best lawyer normally wins.

Having said that, the sight of two AC72's going at it on Sunday was a spectacle, even if Emirates Team New Zealand had the wood on its Italian rivals. Seeing sailboats flying across the water at speeds in excess of 40 knots, completely out of the water except for the narrow foils was a remarkable sight. Here's hoping that there is some close racing at some point in the Louis Vuitton regatta, or the America's Cup match itself.