America's Cup: Kiwis only team left standing after Training Day 2 slugfest
by America's Cup Media edited by S-W NZ 29 Nov 2023 14:05 NZDT
Practice session - Jeddah, Saudi Arabia - November 28, 2023 © America's Cup Media
Due to a forecast at the top end of the 2024 America's Cup racing range, four of the six teams elected to stay ashore for the second day of systems checking for the race management team.
Emirates Team New Zealand, the Defenders of the America's Cup and INEOS Britannia, the Challenger of Record, were the only two teams to venture out of the Jeddah Yacht Club Marina
The Red Sea, billed as a soft air, flat water venue, did not live up to the brochure, turning on a 14-17kt NW breeze and 1.2-1.4 metre sea state.
Unfortunately for INEOS Britannia, a technical issue with a stuck flap meant that they hove-to to the middle of the racecourse attempting to fix the issue. After approximately half an hour, Rob Andrews, the team's coach, informed race control that they could not make a lasting fix on the water and so returned to base.
Meanwhile, Emirates Team New Zealand accepted the count-down sequence and was the sole starter in a scheduled two-lap race in a building swell and breeze right at the top end for the AC40s.
The New Zealand flight controllers dialled in a low flight with wide cant angles to keep the boat close enough to the water for speed but high enough to ride the swells.
With the seas building, Emirates Team New Zealand made an onboard decision to curtail the second beat halfway up, bore away with two boards down, gybed and headed back towards race control.
Immediately after gybing, the Kiwis got caught on a swell and hobby-horsed into a full splashdown. The session ended at that juncture with the Chase Boat moving in to tow the AC40 home.
Speaking after the session, Nathan Outteridge summed up the day.
"It was top end on the sea state for sure. There were moments when you had to back off a bit and try and manage the boat and other moments when you found a few flat pieces of water and could really push it hard, but as anyone knows who watches these boats, you can't really throttle back too much downwind.
"It's still full noise; it's just really working on your positioning on the manoeuvres and trying to get through those gybes - anything where you're on two boards is always tricky on these boats because the auto-pilot is bouncing around.
"It was a good session for us. We got out and did what we wanted to do, got back, and now we're starting to prep for probably lighter, flatter conditions."
More benign conditions of approximately 8-12 knots are expected on Wednesday for the Official Practice Races of the second of the Preliminary Events, which are part of the 2024 America's Cup but don't count for points in that event.
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