It has been a disappointing start to the America’s Cup for the British INEOS Britannia team, who have finished behind America’s Cup Defender, Emirates Team New Zealand in all three races to date.

With the Kiwis 3-0 in the lead in this best-of-13 race series, the Brits need to start getting some wins on the board if they want to have any impact on the series. Ben Ainslie’s INEOS Britannia have not looked particularly slow so far in this series, but they have not done well in the pre-start, which has seen them start most races on the back foot.

Once again the wind was fairly light in Barcelona with around 10 knots across the course at start time.

Key takeaways from the America’s Cup Day 3?

• The Kiwis have the pace to overtake
• The New Zealand boat continues to look very fast through tacks
• In a straight line there’s very little between the two boats.

Race 4 INEOS Britannia Vs Emirates Team New Zealand

Skippers
Emirates Team New Zealand: Peter Burling & Nathan Outteridge 
INEOS Britannia: Ben Ainslie & Dylan Fletcher

Emirates Team New Zealand were first into the start box on port tack and set off towards the right hand boundary before gybing close to the boundary and running down the edge of it. The Kiwis gybed around and the Brits, who had been following back, tacked around to gauge off to windward to set up a time on distance match back to the line.

At the start gun both boats hit the startline with the Kiwis at the bottom third of the line and the Brits up to windward. However Ainslie had done a great job of footing into their gap to leeward and at the gun the Brits had a couple of knots of boat speed over New Zealand. .

When Burling and Outteridge reached the left hand boundary the Brits were able to tack straight off their bow, and squeeze up to force the Kiwis to tack away immediately.

INEOS let them go the few boat lengths back to the boundary before tacking back as both teams headed over to the right hand boundary.

When the Brits tacked across they had starboard advantage and were able to force the New Zealanders to duck their transom.

The Brits were leading early on in the race. Photo: Ricardo Pinto / America’s Cup

But at the next cross it was the Kiwis on starboard with the advantage and they elected to tack directly in front of INEOS Britannia, who tacked away to round the left hand gate mark (looking upwind), while the Kiwis continued around the right hand mark.

They both rounded their respective marks at around the same time, but the Kiwis had a touch more wind out on their side of the course and at the first cross downwind the Brits were forced to take the stern of the New Zealand boat.

At the next cross it was very cross with the starboard tacked INEOS just behind the Kiwis, but that would hand the starboard tack advantage to the Brits as they come into the leeward gate.

Burling and Outteridge were just able to gybe in front of Ainslie and Fletcher with the Brits gybing away immediately to take the left hand mark ,while the Kiwis rounded the right mark.

At the first cross New Zealand were just ahead again and tacked in a strong leebow position to force INEOS to tack away to the slightly lighter wind left hand side of the course.

By the next cross the New Zealand team had used the better wind on the right of the course to their advantage and had built their lead up to around 120m, the biggest it has been all race.

By the second windward gate the Kiwis had managed to build that lead a little more and both boats rounded the left hand gate mark with the Brits rounding 13 seconds behind the Kiwis.

That gap lead had built by a couple of seconds around the next leeward gate and, with the Kiwis keeping a tight cover pin their opposition it increasingly looked like the Brits would need a massive mistake from the Kiwis to avoid going 4-0 down in the series.

But the New Zealanders are America’s Cup Defenders for a reason and they do not often make mistakes.

In truth the race was gone by the end of the second beat, when Burling and Outteridge managed to covert a marginal lead into a significant gap by picking the right side of the course and showing their advantage in manoeuvres again – especially through the tacks.

“It was pretty tricky getting off that left hand boundary initially,” said Outteridge after the race. “When we had the opportunity to cross over to the right we managed to get a little gain and then get in there with the right turn,” h said of the key overtake on leg 1.

“We’ve made a good improvement with the performance of the boat and it’s tacking really nicely,” Outteridge concluded.

“It was a good race, we had a good start and got the first cross. But they are going well, they’ve been going really well,” Ainslie reflected.  “It was good to come out and have a strong start today. But as Ben said there’s some more work to be done,” Fletcher agreed.

Tomorrow is a lay-day for the competition with racing getting back underway on Wednesday 16 October.

What did we learn from the America’s Cup Race 4?

This race will be a really big concern for the British team having won the start and holding the lead halfway up the first beat they will be incredibly disappointed to have lost that lead. Once again the Kiwis real strength looks to be during tacks in this lighter weather with the Kiwis floating though the tacks a little more smoothly and managing to keep a slightly higher average speed through the turn.

There certainly doesn’t look to be a significant margin between the two boats, and it still looks unlikely this will be a total whitewash. But at 4-0 down in the first to seven series, the Kiwis now only need to win three races, while the Brits need to pick up seven wins. And that is starting to look like a very big ask…

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