Boat development now the priority for teams
YACHTING
AUCKLAND: A capsize, close racing, a cancellation and compliance complaints capped off roundrobin action in the Prada Cup series — now the focus turns to boat development.
After an eventful round robin series, Team UK secured a spot in the finals and waits to see if a repaired American Magic or a hurting Luna Rossa come through the semifinals on top.
Whether American Magic has merely done repairs to its damaged AC75 or taken the opportunity to make improvements to Patriot will become clear this week.
Before the capsize the Americans did not lack speed and the other challengers said they expected the New York Yacht Club’s entry to return to the water and be competitive.
American Magic is required to have its boat ready for inspection by the regatta’s measurement committee on Wednesday afternoon — 48 hours before racing resumes.
Skipper Terry Hutchinson said the repair work is ahead of schedule but he said it was too soon to say when it would be back on the water this week
Hutchinson credited assistance from Team New Zealand boat builders for getting it on track to return for the semifinals.
‘‘The thing that we are reminded of is really what the defender has done for us and what they’ve helped us achieve, because certainly without them it wouldn’t have happened,’’ Hutchinson said.
‘‘We have nothing but high thanks for Team New Zealand for what they did.’’
However, New Zealand yacht designer and former technical director for America’s Cup team Team Korea Brett BakewellWhite said Team New Zealand’s assistance was not selfless.
‘‘Whilst it’s very generous and they’re doing it for all the good reasons, it’s also to the advantage of particularly Team New Zealand as defender because if they lost American Magic from the event it reduces the impact of the event and the success of the event overall.’’
BakewellWhite said currently all the teams’ boats have design differences but that would change in the coming weeks as the new class of boat continued to develop.
The cancellation of racing in World Series regattas in 2020 due to Covid19 had delayed all teams’ development, BakewellWhite said.
‘‘There’s no real agreement on what’s the quickest or best solution yet,’’ he said.
‘‘We haven’t seen the level of development that probably you would have expected prior to the Cup because of the lack of sailing, so now we’re seeing an accelerated rate of development and improvement and that’s probably the scariest thing for Team New Zealand as defender.’’
Experienced skipper Sir Ben Ainslie claimed the British still have a long way to go in terms of boat development. Victory in the Prada Cup round robin brought it three weeks away from racing and the opportunity to put the boat back in the shed.
After some early
struggles,
Team UK found an extra level of performance in its boat, but Ainslie said it still had list of things it wanted to change.
‘‘We can maybe make some slightly bigger upgrades than perhaps we would have done before, but obviously we can’t really talk about that. Needless to say we’re trying to get faster like all of these other teams out here.
‘‘As we all know that’s the secret to trying to win the America’s Cup. It’s always that constant improvement and trying to get faster and faster every day.’’
Any changes made to Britannia would need to be by the book.
The team had already broken the AC75 class rule once this regatta — with a nonperformance enhancing modification to its mainsail — and were at risk of being disqualified from a race in the finals series if it did it again.
Team UK’s infringement was brought to the attention of the rule makers by Luna Rossa — and the Brits were fined.
Ainslie said the rules for the new class of boat leave plenty of grey areas and teams should not spend time nitpicking the opposition.
‘‘It’s time for teams to either put up or shut up in terms of complaints.’’
Racing resumes on Friday with American Magic and Luna Rossa contesting the best of seven semifinals. — RNZ