Cup Experience News

Issue 38 | Monday 24 October 2016

Does Land Rover BAR have the easiest schedule?

On 18 October 2016 ACEA published a modified schedule for the double round robin America’s Cup Qualifiers. Instead of 10 days of racing with each team racing once per day, the AC Qualifiers have been reduced to eight days with at least one team having to race twice on every day. This is a big deal.

Here is the original schedule:

Here is the new calendar. You can download it here.

The big advantage of the new schedule is having a guaranteed layday between the Challenger Playoff semi-finals and finals.

Stamina and Limited Substitutions
Much has been made of the physical demands on the grinders. Only two crew substitutions can be made between races, so when a fresh team comes up against a team that has already raced once, the fresh team will have a big advantage.
And, what if something breaks during your first race? Even if you have time to make the repair, your preparation for the second race will be thrown off.

A Closer Look at the Schedule

Does Land Rover BAR have the easiest schedule?
Do Oracle Team USA and SoftBank Team Japan have schedules almost as good?
Do the Kiwis have a good schedule?
Do Artemis Racing and Groupama Team France have the worst schedules?

All of the teams have a day off on Thursday 1 June, after six days of racing. Five of the six teams get another layday, all except Emirates Team New Zealand. In return, the Kiwis only have two days when they race twice. Each of the other teams has two races on three days. Let’s look at the schedules, team by team.

Land Rover BAR seems to have the best schedule: they have to race twice on three days, but each time they will be racing against another team who has already raced earlier in the day. BAR also has two laydays in a row – Thursday 1 June, when all the teams are off and Friday 2 June. This will let them regain some strength for the last day of the round robin when they face Team Japan, and, in the very last race of the round robin, Oracle.

Oracle Team USA has it almost as good: each time they race twice in a day they too race against another team that has already raced earlier in the day. But… they have to race twice on two successive days, Day 2 against Land Rover BAR and Day 3 against SoftBank Team Japan.

SoftBank Team Japan only has to race a fresh team once. On Day 6 their second race is against Oracle Team USA, but Team Japan has a layday on Day 5 so they should be rested for Day 6.

Artemis Racing faces fresh teams on two of their three two-race days. Interestingly they will face BAR twice when BAR is fresh but Artemis has already raced earlier in the day. Like BAR, they get two days in a row off – May 31st and June 1st – before the last two days of the round robin.

Groupama Team France may have the toughest schedule. They race twice on three days, twice against teams that are fresh. The one time their second race of the day is against another team that has raced it’s against BAR.

Emirates Team New Zealand is the only team that races twice on only two days – both times against fresh teams: BAR on Day 3 and Team France on Day 7, the day after the layday for all teams. This seems like it should be a good schedule, but they are the only team that does not get a day off on one of the race days.

The New York Yacht Club's storied Model Room was the site of the induction ceremony for two leading personalities in America's Cup history, Ernesto Bertarelli and Windham Thomas Wyndham-Quin, fourth Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl.

Ernesto Bertarelli (left) received a half-hull of "Reliance" from Steve Tsuchiya (center) chairman of the selection committee and Bill Lynn (right), CEO of the Herreshoff Marine Museum, home of the America's Cup Hall of Fame. "Reliance" defeated Sir Thomas Lipton's Shamrock III in 1903 and was Nat Herreshoff's masterpiece - over 202 feet (60m) from the tip of the bowsprit to the end of the boom, with a bulb keel of 102 tons.

Dunraven - Vilified Polymath and Innovator

Dunraven was a soldier, journalist, yacht designer, adventurer and statesman. He challenged for the America's Cup twice, in 1893 and 1895. He was the first person to propose challenger selection trials, but was refused by the New York Yacht Club. His massive yachts Valkyrie II and Valkyrie III ushered in the golden age of the 90 footers. Unfortunately for Dunraven, this was also the beginning of the Herreshoff era. Nathanael Green Herreshoff designed and built yachts that won the America's Cup six times in a row, beginning with Vigilant in 1893 and Defender in 1895. In 1895, Dunraven chose to believe his advisors who told him that his opponent had cheated by taking on extra ballast at night, lengthening her waterline. An acrimonious and public feud was fought in the press and in an investigation conducted by the New York Yacht Club. "Defender" was cleared of wrong-doing and Dunraven was vilified.

Bertarelli - the First and Only Challenger to Succeed on the First Try

"Anytime you do something that you love, you have that smile on your face." Watch this video.

Ernesto Bertarelli built his Alinghi team around a core group of Kiwi sailors who had already won the America's Cup twice - Russell Coutts, Brad Butterworth, Murray Jones, Warwick Fleury, Simon Daubney and Dean Phipps. All of them are now members of the America's Cup Hall of Fame. He assembled a complete team of designers, managers, boat builders and shore crew. In 2004 he initiated what is now called the America's Cup World Series, organizing a series of regattas as part of the buildup to the 2007 America's Cup. The 32nd America's Cup, held in Valencia, Spain, is the only America's Cup to turn a profit and pay out shares of the proceeds to all the competitors. After two years of unfriendly competition in the New York courts, Alinghi lost the America's Cup in 2010 to BMW Oracle Racing, in massive multihulls that recalled the golden era of Dunraven, Lipton and Herreshoff.

Bertarelli gave an eloquent acceptance speech, saying, "The journey that has brought me here was not a solo expedition, but rather one made possible – and shared – by the hundreds of people whose talent, passion and dedication were the DNA of the Alinghi Team. To them all, I say, remember the mission that we set ourselves all those years ago: ‘We want to build a team to be proud of’. We did it!”

SoftBank Team Japan "hooks" Oracle in the pre-start. Click image to watch the video.

The three Bermuda-based teams, Artemis Racing, SoftBank Team Japan and Oracle Team USA held a series of practice races on the Great Sound, using their AC45X test boats. There were lots of lead changes, but these came mostly from mistakes - boats dropping off their foils when gybing or tacking. We can assume that by next May, when the round robin America's Cup Qualifiers begin, that all the teams will be making fewer mistakes. This was match racing, and we did get to see some traditional match race tactics. In this short video during a pre-start we see Team Japan hook Oracle, luff them head to wind and win the start.

America's Cup Guide