Lessons from San Fran fiasco
Watching Team NZ get stranded and denied a race win spooky
There was a sense of deja vu as I watched race four of the World Series regatta. The sight of a black, slimline American yacht leading the chunkier looking black and red New Zealand yacht across the finish line felt a little uncomfortable.
Watching the time limit reached on the final day of racing, leaving Team New Zealand stranded and denied a race win, was spooky.
The reason? Two words: San Francisco.
That agonising, painful defeat in 2013 from a lead of 8-1 — only needing one more victory to win the 34th America’s Cup — is not something which is easily forgotten.
Could it happen again?
I don’t think it will, and here’s why. In 2013 the new class of AC72 catamarans had a number of key breakthrough areas that no team had nailed by the time the America’s Cup regatta got underway. The most important of these was the ability to foil upwind.
Team New Zealand had surprised everyone in developing a foiling catamaran, a major breakthrough not envisaged by the other teams. However, their ability to fully foil was only on the downwind legs of the race (sailing with the true wind direction behind the yacht). As a result, on the upwind legs (half of the race), the AC72 catamarans were “skimming” the water surface rather than fully flying on their foils.
All the teams were working on being able to foil upwind, but no one had nailed it before the Cup regatta.
The Cup defender, Oracle Team USA, had set a long regatta, with the largest number of America’s Cup races in the 166-year history of the event. A best-of-17 series was an extended period which allowed time for the team behind on points to potentially come back. There were also a number of “lay-days” interspersed throughout the regatta on which teams were permitted to sail and practice.
This meant there was a long regatta where Oracle had time to try and make the breakthrough to foil upwind. The Kiwis were working on this too, but their larger and more robust design possessed inherently more drag and was more difficult to get to fly upwind than the sleeker American design.
Both teams knew the ability to foil upwind was going to be a huge speed gain and each team was striving to make this breakthrough. It was Oracle who did this first, and only just in time, to manufacture the greatest comeback victory in America’s Cup history.
For those in Team New Zealand involved in this devastating loss, the wounds may have healed, but the scars remain. Most importantly, the lessons learned are now very much embedded in the ethos of the Kiwi team:
Don’t show your design and technique advantages too early, keep continually improving, focus on what you are doing (but keep an eye on your competition), stay composed and do not let your opponent distract you, and let the sailing team lead the sailing decisions.
What’s different about the 36th America’s Cup in the AC75 foiling monohulls is that there are no major breakthroughs left to make. All teams are foiling upwind and down. All teams are foiling through tacks and gybes. It is different to San Francisco.
However, as we have seen, the ability to stay flying in low wind speeds, especially in manoeuvres, is critical and this will be a high priority for all teams as they look forward to several months of summer conditions in Auckland.
The ghosts of San Francisco remain in the back of my mind, but despite being haunted by the memories I don’t think we will see history repeat itself in March 2021, despite what Jimmy Spithill and Sir Ben Ainslie say.
Resurrecting ghosts of the past is only possible if you choose to believe in them. A logical examination of the current scenario results in an assessment that such a resurrection is extremely unlikely.
So, if you find yourself having nervous flashbacks as I did over the past few days, turn your mind to a little island nation in the Atlantic Ocean and the month of June, 2017. Ah, thank goodness for Bermuda.
All the teams were working on being able to foil upwind, but no one had nailed it before the Cup regatta.