TEAM EMIRATES – Having travelled all the way across the pacific in pieces on a ship, the wing sailneeds to be reconstructed into the mammoth structure which powers the AC72. The man that leads the operation is Jon Douglas or as he is simply and affectionately know, JD
AMERICAS CUP WORLD SERIES – Led by helmsman Francesco Bruni, Luna Rossa Swordfish today won the overall championship of the America’s Cup World Series Naples.
Bruni posted a thrilling win in the fleet racing finale, coming from behind on the final run in a race that saw the lead change hands three times.
The win was cathartic for the emotional Italian helmsman. Earlier in the day Luna Rossa Swordfish lost the match racing championship to ORACLE TEAM USA SLINGSBY. Bruni was critical of his performance in the loss after leading the match early on.
“This win was the only way to forget our mistake in the match racing,” said Bruni, who will be the tactician aboard Luna Rossa Challenge’s AC72 in the upcoming Louis Vuitton Cup, America’s Cup Challenger Series (July 4-Aug. 30).
“The fleet race win really means a lot to me. We had an opportunity for the double win, but just missed out. I can’t thank my crew enough, Paul Campbell-James, Max Sirena, Xabi Fernandez and Manuel Modena. They did a great job today.”
Slingsby delivered on his stated goal: to secure the overall 2012-2013 America’s Cup World Series season championship for ORACLE TEAM USA, the defense team in the upcoming 34th America’s Cup (Sept. 7-21). He wrapped up that championship yesterday and today added the match racing title as well.
“I’m really proud to be getting the America’s Cup World Series trophy for ORACLE TEAM USA,” said Slingsby. ORACLE TEAM USA also won last year’s championship. “Jimmy Spithill and his team set it up for us. We just had to come here, do our best and luckily he gave us enough of a lead to take home the trophy.”
The second America’s Cup World Series Naples surpassed last year’s event in terms of spectators. Local event officials estimate that more than 1 million people have turned out along the Naples waterfront and in the Race Village to enjoy the week-long event.
The crowds began coming out in force last Sunday with some 100,000 people estimated to have lined the shores of the Bay of Naples for the informal coastal race. The fans kept returning, lured by close racing yards from the shoreline and nightly entertainment at the Race Village.
Slingsby won the match racing championship by overtaking Bruni on the second upwind leg. After trailing by 22 seconds at the leeward gate, Slingsby showed the moves that have earned him the nickname “the wind whisperer” due to his ability to sniff out wind shifts and puffs.
“It was so shifty that I honestly thought we had a good chance,” said Slingsby. “I knew if we could get them out of phase on the shifts and we were in phase, huge gains could be made. We said we could catch them and I’m so glad that we did.”
Slingsby passed Bruni when the Italian failed to cover. Until that moment, Bruni had sailed a brilliant match. He showed great patience in the pre-start, stuffing Slingsby and holding him off the course.
“We did everything perfectly until that moment,” said Bruni. “We made a couple of big mistakes on the last upwind leg. The wind was shifting a lot and we had a couple of bad tacks where boat completely stopped.”
Second place in the America’s Cup World Series season championship went to Chris Draper and Luna Rossa Piranha. The defending champions at America’s Cup World Series Naples placed fourth overall this year.
“I think we were going so well just before event, we probably got a little bit expectant and ahead of ourselves,” said Draper, the helmsman of Luna Rossa’s AC72. “But we’re pleased to place second overall in the series. There are a lot of good teams out here.”
America’s Cup World Series Naples wraps up the 2012-13 America’s Cup World Series season. The focus now shifts to the “Summer of Racing” planned for San Francisco. It begins in July with the Louis Vuitton Cup, the America’s Cup Challenger Series, and concludes in September with the America’s Cup Finals.
America’s Cup World Series Naples Championship Standings
1. Luna Rossa Swordfish (Francesco Bruni) – 80 points
2. ORACLE TEAM USA (Tom Slingsby) – 80
3. Emirates Team New Zealand (Dean Barker) – 71
4. Luna Rossa Piranha (Chris Draper) – 70
5. J.P. Morgan BAR (Ben Ainslie) – 65
6. Energy Team (Yann Guichard) – 58
7. Artemis Racing White (Charlie Ekberg) – 40
8. HS Racing (R. Hagara/H.S. Steinacher) – 36
9. China Team (Mitch Booth) – 30
America’s Cup World Series Naples Match Racing Championship
1. ORACLE TEAM USA SLINGSBY, 2. Luna Rossa Swordfish, 3. J.P. Morgan BAR, 4. Luna Rossa Piranha, 5. Emirates Team New Zealand, 6. Artemis Racing White, 7. Energy Team, 8. HS Racing, 9.China Team
2012-2013 America’s Cup World Series Season Championship
1. ORACLE TEAM USA SPITHILL/SLINGSBY – 245 points
2. Luna Rossa Piranha – 191
3. J.P. Morgan BAR – 181
4. Emirates Team New Zealand – 171
5. Energy Team – 160
6. Artemis Racing White – 160
7. Luna Rossa Swordfish – 151
8. Team Korea – 105
9. ORACLE TEAM USA COUTTS – 98
10. Artemis Racing Red – 90
11. China Team – 73
12. HS Racing – 36
2012-2013 America’s Cup World Series Match Racing Championship
1. ORACLE TEAM USA SPITHILL/SLINGSBY 29 points, 2. Emirates Team New Zealand – 22, 3.Artemis Racing White – 21, 4. ORACLE TEAM USA COUTTS – 16, 5. J.P. Morgan BAR – 15, 6.Energy Team – 15, 7. Luna Rossa Swordfish – 14, 8. Luna Rossa Piranha – 13, 9. Artemis Racing Red – 8, 10. China Team – 5, 11. Team Korea – 5, 12. HS Racing – 3
TEAM ARTEMIS – Charlie Ekberg and Niclas During are taking full advantage of their three weeks at Artemis Racing. They will be sailing on Swedish Youth Challenge in the Red Bull Youth America’s Cup this summer. Charlie also joins Artemis Racing White to compete in the final ACWS event in Naples, April 16-21.
RED BULL YOUTH AMERICAS CUP – First reactions from the Red Bull Youth America’s Cup Selection Series Session 2 sailors before they headed out for their first training session, and upon returning to the dock. Every sailor walked off the dock yesterday grinning ear to ear.
TEAM EMIRATES – The AC72′s are like no yachts to have ever been sailed. Team Trainer David Slyfield is the man in charge of training the crew to handle the demands of sailing each day on the AC72.
TEAM EMIRATES - The picture: Trimmer James Dagg (centre) on board the AC72 with Rob Waddell and Winston Macfarlane
Trimmer James Dagg’s previous experience in multihulls was a couple of days on a Hobie Cat 16 sailing off a beach north of Auckland.That was three years ago.
He vaguely remembers a multihull regatta back in the mists of time, probably 11 or 12 years ago.
Now, along with other members of the Emirates Team New Zealand sailing crew, his multihull experience ranges from A Class single-handed cats and competing on the Extreme 40 circuit and America’s Cup World Series AC45 regattas. Over the next couple of weeks, they’re wrapping up the 2012 AC72 testing and training programme.
“Life,” he says, “is a lot more fun than it used to be. We learn more and more every time we sail the 72.
“Testing the V5 monohulls was very different. We went out looking for a 3 – 4 metre gain in a 3 – 4 minute test. Now we’re looking for gains measured in boat lengths in a 3 – 4 minute test.”
So here’s James Dagg’s take on the progression from the V5 monohulls, through the 40ft Extreme 40 cats, to the AC45 and now the AC72.
He says: “They’re all very different. The Extreme 40 experience was coming to grips with fleet racing 10 to 12 boats in really confined waters. It was like dodgems … so we learned a lot about boat handling, starting and manoeuvring but you don’t learn a lot about the speed side of multihull sailing.
The AC45 regattas are a lot more intense, because there’s more pressure to win. The boats are a little livelier and a lot more high-tech – a wing versus a soft sail, for example.
The 45 is a lot more physical than the X40. With a crew of only five and with runners and boards to get up and down the boat is a lot harder to sail around the course.
“The AC72s are a new game again. …that’s when it gets really interesting. The 72s are huge design and development projects – but the sailing team also has to be capable of sailing the boat well. They’re incredibly physical to sail (up several notches on the 45) – as there are only 11 crew. A lot of very hard work is involved to get them round the course.
James Dagg trims the foresails on the 72. In monohull times he was the downwind trimmer and he’s had to make some major adjustments to cope with work aboard the AC72.
“It’s a massive change. Downwind in a V5 boat under a spinnaker the apparent wind was always well behind. On the 72, the apparent wind angle downwind is in the 30’s (degrees) so downwind sails are big jibs rather than traditional spinnakers.
“The wind is always in front no matter what the breeze is doing because the boat’s sailing at high speed and generates its own wind – it drags the wind forward and the breeze comes across the deck from in front of the beam.
Nothing illustrates this better than before the multihulls took over, downwind trimmers looked for puffs astern – now they look ahead.
Speeds, too, are vastly different. The AC monohull, surfing downwind in 25 knots of breeze, would not break 20 knots of boat speed. The 72, in 20 knots, of wind, reaches speeds in the high 30’s to early 40s.
James Dagg remembers a better 2011: “We were fourth in the first regatta of the season followed by scored a couple of seconds and then won the regatta at Boston.”
“We (Glenn Ashby, Barker, Jeremy Lomas) didn’t do all of the events. Some other team members raced in some of them that year because X40 events clashed with some AC45 regattas.”
The original crew was back for the last event of the 2011 season and was placed second.
© Carlo Borlenghi / Luna Rossa Challenge 2013
AC NEWS – Luna Rossa Challenge skipper Max Sirena is embarking on his fourth America’s Cup challenge with the Italian syndicate. He joined the fledgling team in 2000 as a mid-bowman, but now has chosen every man on the team. Sirena took time out yesterday to review how the team has progressed after its late entry into the 34th America’s Cup.
Yesterday was Luna Rossa’s sixth day of sailing the AC72. What has the team learned so far?
We are still on the learning curve of the boat. Only yesterday we tried to be more focused in performance and proper trim than everything else. Up to day before yesterday was more about sea trials. With this boat you will always be in sea trials until the end of the Cup because every day is different and you discover something new with this new machine.
© Carlo Borlenghi / Luna Rossa Challenge 2013
Do you feel like you’ll be ready, fully prepared for the start of the Louis Vuitton Cup?
You’re never ready enough, for sure. Our goal is to try and arrive in San Francisco in good shape, but the main goal is to have as much confidence in the boat as possible to be able to focus on racing the boat rather than sailing the boat. That is the main goal for us.
What has surprised you the most about sailing the AC72?
It all depends on which wind range you are sailing. We’ve sailed a couple of days in winds over 20 knots and it’s a different game, the boatspeed gets up big time. Over 18 knots of breeze you sail easily over 35 knots boatspeed. You have to change the way you sail the boat. You have to be more careful and you push less. It’s fantastic to sail this boat. It’s emotional and stressful at the same time, but it’s an incredible feeling.
© Carlo Borlenghi / Luna Rossa Challenge 2013
Some sailors have said that it’s easier than sailing the AC45.
The main difference is the bear off in these boats. With this boat, you’ve got the foil and are able to trim the foil to have some lift, and that is a big help bearing off. Still, the boat is very powerful and it all depends on the wind range you are sailing. Somehow they are easier to sail, but in saying that they are way more powerful than the 45.
You went sailing yesterday with Team New Zealand, but how hard has it been one boat testing?
There is a very strong relationship between the sailing team and the design team this time around, more than in previous campaigns. The feedback after each test – you try different rake, different sails, different ways to trim the wing or the front sail – the results coming out from the sensation and the feel you have when sailing is different and difficult. I expect big differences in boatspeed for next year because you’re doing a lot of work alone and then you go to San Francisco and you show where you are compared to the other competitors.
Yesterday (Tuesday, New Zealand time) we did a couple of racing drills with Team New Zealand and that was a good thing because you speed up the learning process. But yesterday was Day 6 for us and they have sailed more than 20 days. Personally, I was very happy about the result yesterday.
© Chris Cameron / Emirates Team New Zealand
One of your shore crew was injured last week while launching the wing. How have you changed the procedures for that in light of the incident?
We spend a lot of time thinking about the best procedure to step and load this boat. The critical problem of stepping the wing is having the wing half way hoisted and exposed to the wind and wind shifts. When the wing is 50 percent in the air there is not much you can do. It is a big surface and when it starts to go it’s hard to hold. I don’t think we can avoid it at that stage. You can always change the way you are stepping the wing, but the there will always be a 5 percent chance to have an issue during this maneuver. The shore team worked very well and fixed the wing in a day and a half and we sailed on Monday. You don’t want to have someone hurt. That is the bad part when you have an accident like that. Fred (Gastinel, a member of the shore team) is already back from the hospital and tomorrow will be back to work.
You’ve been with Luna Rossa since the team was founded. How is this one different from past teams?
The big difference of Luna Rossa is the spirit, and this spirit is coming out of Patrizio Bertelli. I’ve known him for long time. For me it’s easy to work this way. I’m lucky because I chose each team member. The main goal was to not have any rock stars. In saying that I’m not saying we don’t have talent, there’s lots of talent from the kitchen to the shore team to the technical support team, to the design team and the sailing team. The team is full of talent. The main goal is to have everyone working for the team and not for ourselves. At the end it’s a team game. If the team wins, it’s good for everyone. We approach everything low key. We don’t like to send out an interview or press release after every sailing day like other teams. I’m not saying that it’s wrong or right, this is the way we work. I tell the boys let’s show what we can do on the water and then they’ll talk about us. It’s a different approach, low profile. We like to show our strength on the water, not just by sending out press releases every day.
© Carlo Borlenghi / Luna Rossa Challenge 2013
So summarize the state of the team right now. How far down the path towards the 34th America’s Cup are you and how much more needs to be done to get there?
We are on the learning curve. We are really happy because we started one and a half years after the other teams like Artemis, Oracle and Team New Zealand. We got the boat in the water and have sailed in pretty much all wind ranges. So far, touch wood, we haven’t had any major problems sailing. So now we have to focus on sailing performance and going out and spending as many hours as possible on the water to improve our strength. There is a lot of work to do. We want to use the next months ahead before moving to San Francisco in May to build and test the right tools on the next boat.
© Chris Cameron / Emirates Team New Zealand
AC UPDATE – Olympic medalist Michael Johnson raced with ORACLE TEAM USA COUTTS in the Fleet Race Final. Watch Johnson ‘abandon ship’ !!!
TEAM BAR- Following his historic gold medal win at the Olympics just two weeks ago, Ben Ainslie is shifting his attention to the America’s Cup, another lifelong dream for the British sailor.
At the Olympic Games earlier this month, Ainslie became the most successful Olympic sailor in history, adding a fourth consecutive gold medal to his 1996 silver medal.
Now, he’s in San Francisco with his own J.P. Morgan BAR team, about to compete in the America’s Cup World Series for the first time.
“As a kid growing up I really wanted to be part of the Olympics and do well at that and also to be part of an America’s Cup team that could win,” Ainslie said on Saturday. “This is the next stage in my career and I’m really excited to be a part of the Cup.”
Ainslie was on the water training on Saturday afternoon in the strong conditions on San Francisco Bay with an experienced crew that had previously competed under ORACLE TEAM USA Coutts banner.
“I couldn’t ask for a better team around me. I’m definitely the weak link at the moment,” he joked. “I probably learned more today than I have in the past 25 years of sailing. It’s so much fun and so rewarding when you go into something you don’t really know. This style of racing and this boat – the AC45 – is a massive learning curve and that’s a lot of fun.”
He says he’s keeping his expectations in check this week, although he admits his competitive nature will probably get the better of him.
“We’re going to try and just stay out of trouble initially and slowly work our way up,” he said. “I do like to do well, but we have to be realistic. A lot of these teams have been going at if for a long time now, but we have the right support, we have good sailors and the boat looks great, so why not?”
J.P. Morgan BAR will compete in all of the 2012-13 AC World Series events but in between, Ainslie will work with ORACLE TEAM USA as a member of their sailing team on the giant AC72 catamarans. Ainslie is expected to battle skipper Jimmy Spithill in the Defender Trials next summer in San Francisco.
“I can’t wait to start working together, because we’ll be getting the best sailor on the planet right now,” Spithill said earlier this week. “It’s exciting from a team perspective. And personally, he’s going to push me. I think we’ll all learn a lot from someone like him.”
SAILING NEWS – The America’s Cup community congratulates Stan Honey and John Kostecki for their selection to the National Sailing Hall of Fame. Honey, the global navigator and Emmy award-winning graphics innovator, and Kostecki, a winner of the America’s Cup, Volvo Ocean Race and Olympic silver medal, were among the nine selections in the class of 2012.
The 2012 NSHOF induction ceremony will be held Oct. 14 at Southern Yacht Club in New Orleans. Inductees are American citizens, 45 years of age and up, who have made significant impact on the growth and development of the sport in the U.S. in the categories of Sailing, Technical/Design and Contributor (coach, administrator, sailing media).
Honey won the 2005-06 Volvo Ocean Race as well as the 2010 Trophée Jules Verne for fastest non-stop circumnavigation of the globe. Honey is also the America’s Cup Director of Technology and in May the technology team was awarded an Emmy for extraordinary technical innovation with LiveLine, the groundbreaking on-screen graphics package that makes competitive sailing understandable to home viewers worldwide. MORE STORY
AMERICAS CUP- A glimpse of a day on the water sailing the new ETNZ AC72 catamaran
AC NEWS – Check out the first video with a sneak look at NZ’s new AC 72 bow. Nick Holroyd design coordinator for the NZ effort, offers up some insight on the upcoming AC.
MOVING PICTURES – Here are some highlights from day 1 of the AC Worlds Series from Venice
MOVING PICTURES – At the skippers’ press conference on Tuesday in Venice, the sailors were shown, for the first time, the newly commissioned AC World Series Trophy. The topic of conversation was the parity of the fleet, and how difficult it would be to post a consistent scoreline in the racing this week.
AMERICAS CUP – Sailors from around the globe are descending upon Naples, Italy as training begins for the fourth regatta in the 2011/12 America’s Cup World Series. The Event Village opens April 7 and practice takes place over the Easter Weekend. Championship Racing runs from April 11-15.
The top sailing teams in the world will be competing in Naples. The event will feature nine boats from seven countries, including: Luna Rossa Challenge (Italy), with two boats, helmsmen to be revealed April 4; Artemis Racing (Sweden), skipper Terry Hutchinson; China Team (China), skipper Fred Le Peutrec; Emirates Team New Zealand (New Zealand), skipper Dean Barker; Energy Team (France), helmsmen Yann Guichard; ORACLE Racing (USA) with two boats, skippers James Spithill and Darren Bundock; and Team Korea (Korea) with skipper Nathan Outteridge.
Racing is expected to be extremely close, with fierce battle lines already drawn between Emirates Team New Zealand and ORACLE Racing Spithill, who are separated by just one point on the season championship table after the first three AC World Series events.
The World Series talent pool is deeper than ever before with teams recruiting new athletes since the last event at San Diego in November. “I think a lot of the teams will be in the hunt and I think it will be tougher than the regattas last year,” says Emirates Team New Zealand skipper Dean Barker.
While two crews from Luna Rossa Challenge join the field, two of last year’s teams will not be competing in Naples. France’s Aleph has withdrawn from the AC World Series and the 34th America’s Cup, and Spain’s Green Comm Racing has informed Regatta Director Iain Murray that it will not be participating in Naples
MOVING PICTURES – Race 2: Stars & Stripes VS Kookaburra III – 1987 America’s Cup
MOVING PICTURES- The victory made Conner a true legend in the sport, and our ‘America’s Cup 1987, 25th Anniversary’ video looks back at this historic moment, along with a look ahead to the the 34th edition of the Cup, to be defended by American team ORACLE Racing, in
HOTLINK- With a ceremonial mechanized punch through the roof of Pier 27, City, Port and Event Authority officials today broke ground on the Port of San Francisco’s James R. Herman Cruise Terminal at Pier 27. The cruise terminal and its surrounding area will serve as part of the America’s Cup Race Village in 2013, which will be the hub of activity, along with Pier 29, for the Louis Vuitton Cup and America’s Cup Finals.
“We’re could not be more proud that the America’s Cup has enabled this long-awaited project to finally get off the ground after two decades; now we can see the economic impacts of the America’s Cup really begin to flow into San Francisco,” said Tom Huston, Chief Commercial Officer, America’s Cup Event Authority. “We are committed to delivering the best sailors on the fastest boats and showcasing the Bay Area on the world stage, and we are excited about this next phase, where we can really begin the hard work of preparing for the races later this year and in 2013.” MORE STORY
MOVING PICTURES – This week’s show heads to Auckland to check in with Luna Rossa Challenge.
MOVING PICTURES
Check out Oracle Racing’s latest video.
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