All is well after a controversial day of racing in the Louis Vuitton Cup final + Our thoughts on all the action

After losing races on Saturday due to light winds, Sunday 29 September in Barcelona started with speeds of 17-22 knots as Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli and INEOS Britannia continued their fight for victory in the Louis Vuitton Cup Finals and faced Emirates Team New Zealand in the American competition Sam mug.

Before entering the Louis Vuitton Cup final, INEOS was considered the preferred boat in stronger winds. However, on the first (and so far only) day of racing in this competition, the teams competed in the best conditions (races cannot start due to winds above 21 knots) and both teams were victorious, with Luna Rossa looking to be a fraction of the top performer.

As if to prove that the conditions were top notch, the Alinghi Red Bull Racing team (who had not trained on the AC75 after being eliminated in the Louis Vuitton Cup semi-finals) managed to capsize their boat, demonstrating how dangerous foilers can be in over 20 knots.

The most important conclusions from the first day of the Louis Vuitton Cup final

• For the second time in the Louis Vuitton Cup series, the referees made the wrong call. A disturbing precedent.
• The boats are still very evenly matched and it looks like this series will continue until the end
• A day of bad luck and bad luck for Luna Rossa

Captains
Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli: Jimmy Spithill and Francesco Bruni
INEOS Britannia: Ben Ainslie and Dylan Fletcher

Like Thursday’s Louis Vuitton final, today’s racing was initially postponed due to winds exceeding a top limit of 21 knots. While the teams were waiting for the start in winds exceeding 20 knots, Luna Rossa managed to damage the mainsail, breaking several strips in the port mainsail skin, which could be seen protruding through the sail.

The AC75 America’s Cup class boat is an extremely complex boat, and a simple mainsail change can take at least 30 minutes. But Luna Rossa had no choice but to try to make the change on time and hope that wind delays would continue.

Unfortunately for the Italian team, the wind dropped slightly during the sail change, and the land crew aboard Luna Rossa was immediately disqualified from the race for using outside assistance. 2-1 for INEOS Britannia…

Captains
INEOS Britannia: Ben Ainslie and Dylan Fletcher
Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli: Jimmy Spithill and Francesco Bruni

After the first day without racing, there was a long wait as the wind continued to exceed the upper limit for racing. However, finally, after over an hour of waiting, the third final race of the Louis Vuitton Cup started in top-class conditions.

As we saw before the first race of the day, sitting waiting for racing in windy conditions is quite difficult on these high performance machines, and in anticipation of the second race of the day it was INEOS’ turn to take some damage by breaking a batten on their boom.

But headsails are much simpler than mainsails, and it was quite quick for the British team to drop the sail, replace the broken batten, and raise the jib again in anticipation of takeoff.

At the start, Luna Rossa was late entering the grid and had to avoid INEOS, which was on the starboard side, making a turn ahead of the British. This allowed INEOS to take a dominant position behind the Italians and push them to the start early, with both boats on the port side.

Luna Rossa reached the start line and was in a very precarious position as the tack would throw her over the line and with INEOS just behind and to leeward they would likely infringe on the British if they tried to tack they would have to keep off the windward side of the boat .

They opted for the latter and – in my opinion – clearly infringed on the British against the return, but the referees inexplicably ruled it a no-penalty, much to the chagrin of a visibly outraged Ainslie and Fletcher. “It was a difficult situation. Of course we thought we had them locked in and they went on the attack. But of course the judges saw it differently,” diplomat Ainslie said after the race.

Therefore, Luna Rossa had an advantage over the starting line, hitting the line with the British just to windward and slightly astern.

The British tacked to the right and were followed to the right border by the Italians, who had the advantage in crossing and were able to tack just in front of the British, eventually forcing them to withdraw.

At the first windward gate the race was close. Luna Rossa was leading around the right hand mark (looking into the wind) with the British rounding the left hand mark just 4 seconds back. We saw that these boats were incredibly evenly matched and once again a similar result could be seen today as the boats rounded the leeward gate at approximately the same distance, with the Italians going to the right and the British to the left.

With the first cross, Luna Rossa once again overtook the British, who managed to push under the Italian team and shoot them out, calling for a protest. However, the situation was much less clear than the previous incident and the referees (rightly) ruled it a no-protest.

Both boats continued to move up the starboard boundary, with the Italians taking close cover behind the British, who were a few seconds behind them around the port mark (looking into the wind).

The British immediately pulled away, but Spithill and Bruni were happy to let them go and gained a few boat lengths by staying on their preferred side of the course to extend the course properly for the first time throughout the race, establishing an 11-second lead around the leeward gate.

Once again Ainsle and Fletcher split course, heading right while the Italians went left and once again it was Luna Rossa on the favored side who were able to pull away and started to look like they could get a decent win.

However, during the final into the wind, the British made some good changes and showed decent pace to get past the final goal, just 6 seconds behind the Italians. What followed was an absolute thriller on the final leg, with the fast-charging INEOS Britannia pushing really hard.

Ultimately, however, it was the Italian team that crossed the finish line a few seconds before the British and once again tied the series.

What did we learn from the fourth Louis Vuitton Cup Race?

Once again, the teams looked fairly evenly matched. And once again the Italian team looked a bit more confident on the race route. However, for INEOS Britannia, the return to the track was impressive and could not have been achieved without at least a little more speed in the boat. And once again, much of that speed was due to the wind.

Taking this into account, the British will be quite unhappy if they leave today’s match without any doubt when in fact it could have been a 4-2 series lead.

Everyone makes mistakes, but it’s a shame that the main topic of conversation today will be the referee’s decision not to give a pre-start penalty, which gave Luna Rossa the advantage. This was (and will be re-examined) a wrong decision in which the British clearly had priority. The judges will have access to more perspectives and technology than the rest of us, and they are all trained professionals, so it will be interesting to hear their reasoning. For my money this is the second time in this regatta where a black and white decision has been wrongly called.

But it certainly makes for a fascinating series between these closely matched teams. We invite you to the next races on Monday, September 30 (officially a reserve day, but currently used after yesterday’s lack of races).

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