“The America’s Cup needs New York, but it did not need this course.” So wrote Ben Ainslie the day after the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series New York. During Race 3 on Sunday, while he and SoftBank Team Japan, parked in a wind hole, were struggling against the current that swept them outside the course limits, the onboard mic picked up Sir Ben commenting, “This is such a joke!” He was watching Emirates Team New Zealand get a gust, jump onto their foils and roar off at 17 knots to win the race and the regatta. About 10 minutes earlier, the current had carried ETNZ into the mark at the pin end of the starting line where they hooked the anchor line and fought to get free while the rest of the fleet stormed off. After the race, Kiwi skipper Glenn Ashby laughed, saying, “There were just some crazy shifts going on – really the race was never over until it was over as we proved today coming from behind off the start… Anything’s possible on the Hudson.” Still winless in the ACWS, ORACLE TEAM USA skipper Jimmy Spithill had his usual the-glass-is-half-full attitude, saying, “This is a great result for us. We wanted to win, but we’ll take the second place. And, hats off to Emirates Team New Zealand. They looked like they didn’t have a hope in hell of winning, then came from nowhere. Hey, that’s sport, and results do the talking.”

Recalling the last British challenger to come to New York, Ainslie observed, “I am sure Lipton would have been as bemused as I was by the location of the race course for the 21st century America’s Cup. In terms of topography for disturbing wind flow this is probably the most disruptive it could be and in my opinion the last place on earth you would want to put a race course… For this sport to grow we need to guarantee the integrity of the racing, not just for the sailors but also for the fans, who are more attuned to this issue than some may think.” Ainslie is right about the fans – they are interested in more than dramatic images of race yachts (sometimes) foiling past landmarks.

As a team principal, Ainslie understands the challenge of combining commercial interests with good racing. But as Dennis Conner once said, “Something’s screwy here.” Three of the five AC World Series events have lost a full day of racing – too much wind in Portsmouth, too little in Bermuda and New York. The Portsmouth event was severely diluted, since they lost Sunday’s double points racing. Shoehorning the course into the confines of the Hudson meant teams went out of bounds at the windward gate, since the boundary was set inside the three boat length zone. Setting the finish line close to the shore in Gothenburg meant setting it close to the rocks, as Artemis Racing found out, smashing their daggerboard just after crossing the line. Shoehorning the racing into a 90 minute television window on Saturday and Sunday means that postponements must be avoided and reserve days are of no use. A set of self-imposed constraints has carried ACEA into a perfect storm of unintended consequences.

Think back to the beginnings of the America’s Cup World Series, to Cascais and Plymouth in 2011. The events ran over nine days, with two weekends. Double points on the last day of racing, “Super Sunday,” made a bit more sense. Marks were boats that didn’t need to anchor, since they could hold position with the GPS-based race management software using the LiveLine system. At his video-game-like console on board the committee boat, PRO John Craig could reposition marks mid-race and change the length of the legs so the races would end at the right time for the TV broadcast. Safety considerations did away with the mark boats. Cost containment shrank the events to two days, but Super Sunday remains, so last place on Sunday scores the same 10 points as first place on Saturday. And with all this, somehow the US broadcaster NBC Sports chose to cut away to commercials during the racing in New York, infuriating viewers who wondered how the Kiwis managed to win the last race. Cost containment did not make it any easier to schedule events. The presumed Tokyo event in November has still not been confirmed as of this writing. An event in the first quarter of 2017 has been approved by the competitors but no venue or dates have been named.

So, what can be done? For this Cup cycle, nothing. Contracts are in place and there are only three (or four, or five) events left in the ACWS. For the next cycle, some realities and some questions will probably be considered. The weather will always be a question mark, everywhere. Even the San Francisco match lost one full day to light, unstable conditions, not to mention a certain infamous 13^th race that could not be completed in the time limit. Is broadcast TV really that important in the 21^st century? It’s just as well that NBC Sports chose to show the Kentucky Derby Undercard (the Derby itself ran later that afternoon, on their main broadcast channel) instead of the New York ACWS on Saturday, when no races were possible in the TV window. The ACTV team should plan for delays and cancellations and have a mix of substitute content “in the can:” a mix of lifestyle – Lindsey Vonn on the Oracle AC45 – and edutainment – sailors explaining choreography in maneuvers, tactical situations, penalties and rules. During the 2013 match Nathan Outteridge did a mini-segment on starts. Nathan and Chris Draper provided intelligent and intelligible analysis and commentary during and between races. This would take more effort than running replays of past races but it would engage more of the audience.

Right now, we can have close-to-the-shore stadium racing, a fixed 90 minute TV window and reasonably fair racing. Pick any two.