After Saturday’s lost racing due to light winds, Sunday 29 September dawned with 17-22 knots in Barcelona as Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli and INEOS Britannia continued their fight to win the Louis Vuitton Cup Finals and go on to face Emirates Team New Zealand in the America’s Cup itself.

Ahead of the Louis Vuitton Cup Final starting, INEOS was considered to be the favoured boat in higher wind conditions. But the first (and to date only) day of racing in this competition saw the teams competing in conditions that were at the top end (racing cannot start is the wind us over 21 knots) and both teams took a win apiece, with Luna Rossa looking to be fractionally the top performer.

As if to prove just how top-end the conditions were, Alinghi Red Bull Racing (out training in their AC75 after being knocked out the Louis Vuitton Cup Semi-Final) managed to capsize their boat, demonstrating just how on-edge these foilers are in 20+ knots.

Key takeaways from the Louis Vuitton Cup Final Day 1

• For the second time in the Louis Vuitton Cup series the umpires made the wrong call. A worrying precedent.  
• The boats continue to be very evenly matched and this series looks like it will remain close to the very end
• A day of bad and good luck for Luna Rossa

Photo: Ricardo Pinto / America’s Cup

Race 3 Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Vs INEOS Britannia

Skippers
Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli: Jimmy Spithill & Francesco Bruni
INEOS Britannia: Ben Ainslie & Dylan Fletcher

Like Thursday’s Louis Vuitton Final racing, initially today’s racing was postponed due to the wind being over the upper wind limit of 21 knots. And while the teams were awaiting the start in winds over 20 knots, Luna Rossa managed to damage their mainsail, breaking a number of battens in their port mainsail skin, that could be seen poking their way through the sail.

The AC75 America’s Cup class is a massively complex boat and a simple mainsail change can take at least 30 minutes to get done. But Luna Rossa had no choice other than to try to make the change in time and hope that the wind delays continued.

Unfortunately for the Italian team the wind did moderate a little while they were in the process of changing their sail and with the shore crew aboard Luna Rossa was immediately disqualified from the race for having outside assistance. 2-1 to INEOS Britannia…

Lun Rossa gybe in front of INEOS in the startbox. Photo: Ricardo Pinto / America’s Cup

Race 4 INEOS Britannia Vs Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli

Skippers
INEOS Britannia: Ben Ainslie & Dylan Fletcher
Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli: Jimmy Spithill & Francesco Bruni

It was a long wait after the first day’s non-race as the wind continued to flick over the top limit for racing. But finally after more than an hour of waiting, the third race of the Louis Vuitton Cup Final got underway in top-end conditions.

As we saw ahead of the first race of the day, sitting around awaiting racing in windy conditions is pretty tough on these high performance machines and, while awaiting the second race of the day it was INEOS’ turn to pick up some damage, breaking a batten on their jib.

But the headsails are much more simple than the mainsails, and it was a pretty quick job for the British team to drop the sail, replace the broken batten, and rehoist they jib while awaiting the start.

At the start Luna Rossa were late to get into the start box and needed to avoid INEOS who were on starboard by gybing round in front of the Brits. That allowed INEOS to get into a dominant position behind the Italians to push them back to the start early, with both boats on port.

Luna Rossa reached along the startline and were in a very precarious position as a tack would put them over the line and, with INEOS just behind and to leeward, they would likely infringe the Brits should they try to gybe, needing to keep clear as windward boat.

They decided on the later option and – to my eye – clearly infringed the Brits in gybing, but the umpires inexplicably called it no-penalty, much to the chagrin of an audibly outraged Ainslie and Fletcher. “It was a tough one, we obviously thought we had them locked up and they threw a crash gybe in. But obviously the umpires saw it differently,” said a diplomatic Ainslie after racing.

As such, out of the startline it was Luna Rossa who had the advantage, hitting the line with the Brits just to windward and slightly behind.

The Brits tacked away to the right and were followed out to the right hand boundary by the Italians, who were clear ahead at the cross and able to tack right in front of the Brits eventually forcing them to tack away.

At the first windward gate it was a tight race with Luna Rossa leading around the right hand mark (looking upwind) and the Brits rounding the left mark just 4 seconds back. We have seen that these boats are incredibly evenly matched, and once again the similar performance was on display today as the boats rounded the leeward gate with the same gap, more or less, with the Italians heading right and the Brits to the left.

At the first cross, Luna Rossa again tacked in front of the Brits, who were able to foot underneath the Italian team and luff them calling for a protest. But it was a lot less clear than the previous incident and the Judges (correctly) flagged it no protest.

Both boats continued to work up the right hand boundary with the Italians keeping a tight cover on the Brits, who ended following around the left mark (looking upwind) a few seconds behind.

The Brits gybed away immediately, but Spithill and Bruni were happy to let them go and gained several boat lengths through staying on the favoured side of the course to properly extend for the first time all race, consolidating to an 11 second lead around the leeward gate.

Once again Ainsle and Fletcher split the course heading right while the Italians went left and, again on the favoured side, it was Luna Rossa who were able to step away and started to look as through they would cruise out to a decent victory.

But in the final upwind, the Brits picked up some good shifts and showed decent pace to round the final gate a mere 6 seconds behind the Italians. What followed was an absolute thriller of a final leg with a fast-charging INEOS Britannia really pushing hard.

But ultimately it was the Italian team who crossed the line a couple of seconds ahead of the Brits to, once again, tie the series.

Tight racing in windy conditions. Photo: Ian Roman / America’s Cup

What did we learn from the Louis Vuitton Cup Race 4?

Once again the teams looked pretty evenly matched. And once again the Italian outfit did look a little more assured around the race course. But for INEOS Britannia to claw their way back into it was impressive and could not have been achieved without at least a touch more boatspeed. And once again much of this speed was on the downwinds.

That being said the Brits will be pretty unhappy to walk away from today with the scores all square, when it really could have been a 4-2 series lead.

Everyone makes mistakes but it’s a shame the key talking point from today will be the umpires no-penalty call in the pre-start, which handed advantage to Luna Rossa. It was (and remains on reexamine) an incorrect call, with the Brits clearly the right of way boat. The umpires to have access to more angles and technology than the rest of us, and they are all qualified professionals, so it will be interesting the hear the reasoning. For my money this is the second time this regatta that we have seen a black-and-white decision incorrectly called.

But it certainly contributes to a fascinating series between these closely matched teams. Roll on the next races on Monday 30 September (officially a reserve day, but now being used after yesterday’s lack of racing).

Follow all of our 2024 America’s Cup coverage