Postcard from Jeddah...
Postcard from Jeddah...
My update from Jeddah in Saudi Arabia where the six international teams contesting the 37th America’s Cup have been preparing for the second preliminary regatta of this AC cycle
I’m writing this update from Jeddah in Saudi Arabia where the six international teams contesting the 37th America’s Cup have been preparing since Monday aboard their one-design AC40s for the second preliminary regatta of this Cup cycle.
Banks of industrial grade air conditioning units are keeping the spectacular media centre pleasantly cool – but outside the window where the sun is setting spectacularly over the Red Sea the temperature is still above 30C (86F).
Monday and Tuesday’s practice racing was sailed in solid breezes in the 12 to 20 knot range which kicked up an awkwardly lumpy sea state on both days. Only the British and the New Zealand teams opted to sail on Tuesday – the windier of the two. Contrastingly, today’s official practice racing was sailed in gentler conditions in the eight to 10-knot range and flatter seas.
Watching the on-the-water action first hand it seems that the overall quality of the fleet has ratcheted up a few notches since the previous – preliminary regatta in Vilanova i La Geltrú, Spain back in September – an event that was marred by torrential rain and ultra-light winds.
Arguably, the foiling AC40 monohulls are easier to sail in stronger winds than in the fickle breezes the teams encountered in Vilanova when race results were determined by who could stay on the foils longest.
Either way, six AC40s ripping around a windward leeward racecourse at close quarters has been breathtaking to behold first hand and with an expectation of 10 to 15 knot winds for the upcoming three race days (Thursday November 29 to Saturday December 2) we could very well be in for some stunning racing here this week.
In my preview to the Vilanova event I (correctly) predicted that the New York Yacht Club’s American Magic squad would come out on top against the America’s Cup holders Emirates Team New Zealand – a prediction based simply on my belief that the Americans were hungrier for the win than the others.
Applying the same logic this time demands I have to go with Peter Burling and Nathan Outteridge’s Kiwis as the favourites this week in Jeddah.
The America’s Cup defenders have mostly looked a cut above the rest over the last three days of practising – but that’s not to say they have been perfect or are invincible. I have seen two spectacular skyrocket jumps, both of which could easily have ended in a capsize, and at the start of one of today’s races they ended up being squeezed out at the windward end by the Americans and forced off their foils.
Nevertheless, in my books they are still the standout team with regards to boat handling and if they are allowed to get off the line cleanly they will be near impossible to reel in. This is a team that only ever comes to win and my belief is that their defeat in Spain will spur them on to victory this week.
For the other two podium places I think it is a toss up between Ben Ainslie and Giles Scott’s INEOS Britannia and Tom Slingsby and Paul Goodison’s NYYC American Magic.
The British are desperate to redeem themselves after finishing last in Vilanova where they looked to be struggling with a malfunctioning boat throughout the event. The word from the team here in Jeddah is that those problems persisted during some intensive training sessions back in Barcelona and continued to plague the British AC40 during the last few days here in Jeddah – but have since finally been resolved.
“We’ve had a bit of a tricky run with the boat through the sailing that we finished off in Barcelona,” Scott told me after sailing today.
“And there have been a few gremlins creeping in over the past five days here as well. Hopefully though, touch wood, today we didn't see too many at all. Now we need it to stay that way over the next few days.”
Certainly the British team – helmsmen Ainslie and Scott, with Bleddyn Mon and Iain Jensen on sail trim – looked good at times today and even secured their first ever AC40 race win.
Scott said the team would be looking to build some momentum going into tomorrow’s opening day of racing in Jeddah – but was nevertheless cautious about the team’s podium prospects.
“We've really had this big focus of just trying to learn as much as we can out of every day,” he said.
“I think since we've been here in Jeddah and the last stages of those sessions that we did in Barcelona in the 40 it’s all been about trying to squeeze everything out with regards to trying to hone in on our skills. So, we’ll learn as much out of today as we can and going into tomorrow we will approach it very much like we did today.”
Meanwhile, the Americans may have appeared to have had a lacklustre day today (by their standards at least) having twice fallen off the foils in the prestart. However, both helmsman Tom Slingsby and port sail trimmer Michael Menninger told me they had taken plenty of positives from what they agreed had been an up and down day for the Vilanova regatta winners.
“I think that’s a fair assessment,” Menninger said. “We certainly had our struggles – but definitely our positives too. The first race was a big positive for us. We had a decent start at the boat end, but kind of fell back midway up the first beat. But then we were able to sail through the entire fleet and actually win the race.”
“Then in the second two races we just didn't do the best job of staying on the foils in the pre-start. In foiling racing the last boat foiling is the boat that's going to win the race. Unfortunately we were the first boat to fall off the foils and that kind of dictated our races for us.
“But I feel like as a whole we feel prepared and we feel like our boat handling is still pretty crisp and boat speed is fine. So we are all looking forward to racing tomorrow.”
When I asked American Magic helmsman Tom Slingsby what had caused them to come off the foils in two pre-starts he cited the air turbulence generated when the AC40s tack or gybe in the start box.
“Basically there are these big pockets of no wind where a boat has done a manoeuvre and they just throw the turbulence out,” he said. “You don't really know where they are and so when there’s only seven or eight knots of wind you kind of have to spot the boats tacking in the distance and say ‘okay, we don't want to be doing our tack there because the wind is going to be so disturbed.”
As a longtime campaigner on the SailGP circuit, Slingsby is obviously no stranger to the concept of turbulence generated by fast foiling boats. But the difference between foiling catamarans and foiling monohulls is vast in this respect.
“It was quite the learning curve,” he confessed. “I guess in my background with the catamarans, you can always just drop a hull in and then pop up again. With these boats once they fall off the foils it's just game over. So I did learn a bit the hard way today. On one of them I thought we were going to be fine, but we just couldn't pull off the gybe and had to reset. So in two races out of three we were off the foils going nowhere at the gun.”
When I asked what he would be saying to the crew tonight before they begin racing in earnest tomorrow Slingsby told me this:
“I think you've not got to get discouraged by our two bad results today because we were so far behind from the start there was nothing we could do to come back. It was one mistake in the pre-start both times and then we sailed good races, but you don't get to see they are good races because you are in bad air the whole way.
“So I think we just got to clean up on those little mistakes, watch some of the teams and what they might be doing differently and what we can take from that and move into the next one.”
The first three of the event’s eight scheduled fleet races are on the slate for tomorrow when winds out on the Red Sea are expected to be stronger than today. Three more fleet races are scheduled for Friday, with two more on Saturday followed by a winner-takes-all match race between the top two teams.
Sticking my neck out once again – my bet is that an Emirates Team New Zealand versus INEOS Britannia final will go the way of the Kiwis, with NYYC American Magic taking third podium spot.
Excellent commentary and evaluation of teams on the water. Better, than those horrid "spy" reports we're stuck with on the AC website.
Great report, Justin. Looking forward to the next few days of competition. The point of interest will be how the teams transition from the AC40s to the AC75s, and whether "lessons learned" by the primary teams will be properly picked up by the Women's and Youth Teams when they take over the 40s.