Today, Monday 16 September saw the third day of racing for the four remaining America’s Cup challengers in the Louis Vuitton Cup Semi-Finals. And for two teams it was a crucial day as both Alinghi Red Bull Racing and American Magic would be fighting to stay in the competition.

To date, the Semi-Finals have both been fairly one-sided in terms of results, with INEOS Britannia going 4-0 up against Alinghi and Luna Rossa also going 4-0 up against American Magic. This series is a best of nine races (first to five wins) so INEOS and Luna Rossa would each only need to win one of their two scheduled races today to book a spot in the Louis Vuitton Cup Final.

Yesterday’s racing took place in a decent 1o knots, which built throughout the day to top out at 19 knots, by the final race of the day. Today’s racing was dogged by lighter unstable winds and there were many delays as the race committee waited for the wind to get over the 6.5 knot minimum needed for racing to start.

Even when the racing did get underway, it took place in marginal 6-8 knot conditions and with the thermal enhancement never really kicking in, only two races were able to be sailed today.

Tomorrow will see the start of the Youth America’s Cup racing, so Louis Vuitton Cup Semi-Final racing will resume on Wednesday 18 September.

Key takeaways from the Louis Vuitton Cup Semi-Final Day 3

• American Magic continue to look very close to Luna Rossa and it’s not impossible to imagine them winning a few more matches on the bounce
• INEOS look weak in the sub-6 knot conditions and struggled to stay foiling.
• Both Luna Rossa and INEOS will rue not having sealed up their Semi-Final today in order to get an extra day in the shed ahead of Louis Vuitton Final racing

Photo: Ian Roman / America’s Cup

Race 9 Alinghi Red Bull Racing Vs INEOS Britannia

Skippers
INEOS Britannia: Ben Ainlsie & Dylan Fletcher
Alinghi Red Bull Racing: Arnaud Psarofaghis & Maxime Bachelin

Having gone 4-0 down in this series to INOES Britannia, and with all of those wins being by a significant margin, Alinghi Red Bull Racing were looking for a minor miracle from today’s racing. But it all looked to be over for the Swiss team at the start.

Although the wind had filled in enough to officially start a race it was still looking very light with some big holes where the wind strength was probably under 6 knots.

Alinghi led back to the startline in the light winds and it was clear both teams were looking to minimise manoeuvres in order to stay on the foils, but the Brits did a good job of gybing round in front of the Swiss to lead them back to the line. With INEOS downspeed after their gybe, the Swiss looked to try to roll over the Brits, but they could not accelerate quickly enough and ended up to windward of the Brits, with both boats over the startline.

The only choice the Swiss had from there was to wait for the Brits to bear away down to the startline and follow INEOS to the line and start right on their hip, a very weak position. And to make matters worse Psarofaghis and Bachelin got their time on distance wrong and were over the line at the start, handing the lead to the Brits.

By the first windward gate, INEOS led round with a 17 second gap over Alinghi and stepped away in the final part of the first downwind to lead through the leeward gate by over a minute.

However, the wind was looking ever lighter and, as the Brits went to tack on the left hand boundary upwind, they dropped off the foils, allowing the Swiss to catchup and as the Swiss managed to stay on the foils though their tack, the Swiss grabbed the lead and sailed away for a huge lead.

For their part, the Brits seemed to drop off their foils almost every time they tried to tack, while Psarofaghis and Bachelin foiled their way upwind, rounded the windward gate and set off downwind. To add even more peril to the Brits’ predicament the Race Committee then shortened the course to move the finish to the top of the next beat.

But on their final gybe into the leeward gate, Alinghi dropped off their foils and with the wind around 5 knots across the course both boats gave up trying to get foiling and we were treated to a very slow low-riding race. Alinghi made it through the leeward gate and the question quickly became could they make it to the finish inside the 45 minute race time limit.

In the Alinghi crossed the line after 41 minutes 22 seconds and so officially took their first win of the Semi-Final and will live to race another day.

“The guys did a good job of fighting all the way and we got lucky on one puff and it was quite nice,” said Psarofaghis. “Of course we would like to cross the finish line at 45 knots, but we’ll take crossing it at 8 knots if it’s a win.”

What did we learn from Louis Vuitton Cup Semi-Final Race 9?

Certainly INEOS will be concerned about their manoeuvres. Ainslie commented after racing that there were a couple of manoeuvres where they could and should have stayed foiling but they absolutely looked more prone to dropping off the foils than Alinghi did in this incredibly light weather.

The British boat was still clearly the faster when they were on the foils but this does add to some manoeuvrability problems we’ve seen previously. This is of particular concern as the weather becomes more changeable in October as the thermal winds become weaker. As such October sees some significantly windier days and some very light days too.

However, this weakness only looks to show its head in sub-6 knot conditions, so they need a race such as this where there is enough wind to start but it dies away to really see their manoeuvring be an issue.

Alinghi were impressive this race and they absolutely looked the better of the two in sub-6 knots. It was a bit naive in the pre-start from Psarofaghis and Bachelin – a weakness that has been clear throughout this Semi-Final.

Photo: Ian Roman / America’s Cup

Race 10  Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Vs American Magic

Skippers
American Magic: Lucas Calabrese & Tom Slingsby
Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli: Jimmy Spithill & Francesco Bruni

There was another delay as we waited for the wind ahead of the second race of the day, but after only 15 minutes or so, the breeze was back strong enough to get a race start completed. But it still looked pretty unstable and, though it was up to 9 knots in the startbox, it was again softer in other parts of the course.

It was gloves off from the start as Slingsby and Calabrese decided to lead back very early and started hunting the port-tacked Luna Rossa, hoping to put a penalty on the Italian team. But American Magic were not quite able to get up to the Italians to force a port/starboard incident.

The upshot of that is that the American-flagged boat was leading back to the line very early and were scrubbing off speed all the way back to the startline, while Spithill and Bruni were able to reach all the way down to the startline to cross to windward of the Americans but at significantly higher speed.

By the first boundary Luna Rossa managed to get bow-forward of the US boat and were able to tack on them immediately after the boundary, but American Magic did a good job to hang in there and break cover at the top end of the beat and round the windward gate 17 seconds behind.

Both teams then traded sides of the course downwind and the gap was exactly the same at the downwind gate, with Luna Rossa leading around the left mark and American Magic raking the right hand mark.

But there was a touch more wind on the right of the course and at the first cross the port-tacked Luna Rossa were forced to duck the American’s. But it was a late call by Slingsby and Bruni and they crossed the transom of American Magic a little too close and picked up a penalty.

The Italians still managed to snatch the lead back at the next cross, forcing the port-tacked American Magic to duck them. But that looked to have reversed when they crossed again with American Magic on starboard. But Luna Rossa tried to squeeze across their bow and got another penalty in the process.

At the next windward gate rounding, it was American Magic just leading by 3 seconds, with both boats splitting out to different sides of the course again. The gap remained as a 3-second advantage to the Americans all the way down to the leeward gate.

Coming into the leeward gate, the starboard tacked American Magic looked like they might just cross in front of the the port tacked Luna Rossa. But with Luna Rossa in the two boat length circle, Spithill and Bruni decided to go for broke and dive inside American Magic in the hopes of getting a penalty on the American team, who must give way to allow Luna Rossa room to round the mark.

Slingsby and Calabrese were live the danger with Slingsby stating “I think he’s going to go for a penalty here, so we’ll give room.” It was a very close thing, but Slingsby and Calabrese were just able to give enough room to avoid picking up a penalty. With the Italians diving so low coming into the mark they were always going to drop off the foils. They were clearly hoping to get a penalty and force the Americans to drop behind them.

“It was clearly the wrong call, I didn’t look well enough at the software, I just got a glimpse and thought we had a bit of them,” said Bruni after racing.

It took the Italians an age to get back up on the foils and, by the time they managed it, American Magic were long gone to pick up their first win of the series. “It feels really good,” said Slingsby of the win. “It’s been tough, they’ve been just knocking us off for four races straight. But we know we can do it, so we want another one in these conditions.”

What did we learn from Louis Vuitton Cup Semi-Final Race 10?

These two teams have looked pretty evenly matched so far this Semi-Final and the 4-0 scoreline coming into today’s racing was not really a fair reflection of just how close this series has been. Once again this race there was not a great deal to choose between these two boats, with the teams once again trading the lead on a number of occasions.

Famously when Jimmy Spithill was asked how he felt when his Oracle Team USA was one 8-1 down in the best-of-nine 2013 America’s Cup against New Zealand he simply said: “Imagine if they lost it from here.” And after racing yesterday, Slingsby was asked how he felt being one point away from being sent home, to which he replied: “Imagine if they lost it from here.” Imagine, indeed.

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