Strong Finish, But OCS Costs American Magic in Opening Race
The opening day of the Louis Vuitton Cup—the Challenger Series for the 37th edition of the America’s Cup—saw NYYC American Magic face the British Challenger of Record, INEOS Britannia, in their first match. With His Majesty King Felipe VI of Spain in attendance on the water, anticipation was high for an exciting day of racing to open the competition.
The first match of the day, between the French and the Swiss, was delayed significantly due to the wind dropping below the 6.5-knot wind limit, pushing the start of American Magic’s race back. By the time they were set to race, the breeze remained at the lower end of the scale, putting a premium on staying on the foils as they prepared to enter the start box. Unfortunately, the team fell victim to some super light air as they began their setup to enter the start box from the starboard end, with the agonizing result that Patriot fell off her foils outside the starboard end of the start line.
This left the British unchallenged to make a clean start, while the American Magic crew managed to coax Patriot back airborne. After gybing around, the team dipped the line and turned up to start correctly before setting their sights on clawing back INEOS’s advantage over the rest of the six-leg race.
Despite making significant inroads over the next three legs, a slow tack onto the layline for the second windward mark cost them precious seconds, dropping them back 600 meters. Undeterred, the American crew—helmsmen Tom Slingsby and Paul Goodison, with trimmers Michael Menninger and Andrew Campbell—kept fighting, and over the second half of the race, they managed to claw their way back to almost within striking distance. On the final run, just one mistake from the INEOS Britannia crew would have allowed American Magic to surge past. However, in the end, it wasn’t meant to be, as the British sailors held on long enough to take the win—albeit by a much-reduced margin of 14 seconds at the finish.
American Magic sailing coach Tom Burnham gave his assessment of the day: “It was a tough day for us. A bunch of the races were postponed for light air; the breeze built up nicely for the start of our race. So we were looking like it would be a really good race. And, then, the right-hand side of the racecourse, at the very bottom, where our entry was, was super light. So the guys got down to five knots or something, and we were a little bit out of position. We ended up having a bad entry, falling off the foils, and giving the INEOS team a bit of a head start that was hard to overcome. So the guys did a great job fighting back, sailing the boat really well through the whole race, staying in touch on the last downwind leg, and only finishing a couple of seconds behind. So the fight back from as far back as we were is really good, but losing points is never a good thing. So it's a tough day for us to start out with, but we're coming back tomorrow ready to fight.”
Paul Goodison, NYYC American Magic’s port helm, reflected on a tough day: “When we came across to the starboard end of the line for the start, we saw five to six knots wind speed, and it was too light to maneuver. So we shot ourselves in the foot there, but after that, it was impressive how we pulled ourselves back together and kept chasing, chasing, chasing. At the end we were only one bad maneuver away from getting past them. We are bitterly disappointed. We wanted a win today and we are going to have to take a good hard look at what went wrong in the start box. But there is plenty positive to take away from how we sailed the boat and how we managed to keep clawing it back in conditions that were hard to come back in.”
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