#americascup – San Francisco is in the process of serving up the greatest sailing spectacle of all time writes Anthony Shanks.
Will it be Oracle Team USA (OTUSA) to continue their unbeaten run into eight races or can Emirates team New Zealand (ETNZ) break the hoodoo and take the cup down south.
After race 5 Ben Ainslie was drafted in to replace John Kosteki, OTUSA then went on to loose the next two races leaving them 6-0 down with only one win they looked down and out. Of the next 11 races oracle have won 9 and team New Zealand have won 2.
The question has to be asked; what changed? Ben Ainslie was definitely an improvement and his gelling with Tom Slingsby and Jimmy Spithill has provided an amazingly strong after guard. Under immense pressure they have quite simply learned to sail the boat better.
ETNZ had shown the way, to everybody, working out how to hydrofoil these 72 foot monsters and had taken such made such a leap forward that everybody in the know assumed that it was not how but when would they all be competing in Auckland. When the series started it was as if the Americans had not been sailing, after their crash they admittedly lost three months of training time.
Then again everybody needs a bit of luck and two races cancelled firstly because of too much wind and then not enough both with ETNZ leading mut have made the kiwis wonder what was happening.
Oracle Team USA have used every minute available to them to make improvements to both their technique and their boat. The most notable must be their technique, just watching their tacking is one of the most spectacular sights as they roll from hull to hull reducing their wetted surface area as fast as possible. Then we get to the most wonderful sight of foiling up wind at 25+knots, this has to be the holy grail of multihull racing.
Oracle Team USA's performance has to have improved by in excess of 25 percent which in itself is remarkable over such a short period of time. In comparison ETNZ give the impression of standing still, which whilst not true is rather foreboding for this evenings race.
Jimmy Spithill is giving huge credit to the shore team, we all wonder what the enhancement to the boat have been. Have they put a different set of foils in? My take is that they have done something to the foils to get up a little earlier and seem more stable now than the kiwis.
San Francisco for the cup is probably the most predictable race course in the world to race on for this type of sailing, especially when the racing is corralled into such a tight area. With the wind and time limit the improvement only have to be made within quite a tight wind envelope, this has definitely played into OTUSA's hands.
Three days ago Dean Barker looked shell shocked, whilst in the same position 10 days ago Jimmy laconically talked about nothing to lose and just going out and racing.
The 34th America's Cup has become a psychological battle. Based on the last few races can you see past Oracle Team USA winning? Who do you think is going to blink first?
