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Cup Experience News

Issue 47 | Monday 6 February 2017

In this issue:

Land Rover BAR Off the Pace in Bermuda Practice Racing
Oracle Coach Philippe Presti on Practice Racing
Land Rover BAR Base Opening Today
AC Birthdays
No Sport for Old Men?
Rumors from Auckland
Ask Jack: Doesn't the Framework Agreement violate the Deed of Gift?

Results of Practice Racing in Bermuda

Oracle published a report on the practice racing here. Jimmy Spithill said, “There was some great, close racing between ourselves and Artemis Racing and SoftBank Team Japan. All three teams won and lost their share of races and we all learned a lot I think. Unfortunately, the British seemed to be having issues and weren’t competitive which was a bit of surprise.”

BAR have just over 100 days to get things sorted out. Remember that Oracle was taken by surprise in the 2013 AC Match in San Francisco, but made a series of improvements over two weeks and staged their comeback.

Unofficial results, as reported by Oracle:

Artemis claimed on Twitter that Oracle used alternative facts:

Race Analysis / More Video of Practice Racing

As promised last week, I continue to add videos to this page on the website. In one video, Oracle's sailing coach, Philippe Presti talks about the racing. At about 50 seconds into the video he talks about them needing to improve their gybing - they made several errors on gybes. Philippe says they are strong in tacking, good in the prestart and have good boatspeed, especially in light air. At 1:03 there is good drone footage of prestart manoeuvring with Artemis.

I have also added a video from Emirates Team New Zealand with a foiling tack, and SoftBank Team Japan's first foiling tack last May. Enjoy!

Livestream of Land Rover BAR Base Opening in Bermuda Today

Ben's wife Georgie Ainslie does a Facebook livestream from Bermuda every Monday. This week we'll see their base opening celebration - no doubt with the traditional Bermudian roof-wetting ceremony. They will "reveal" their AC Class race yacht, but will they put the boat in the water? Any daggerboards in the boat when it is afloat count towards the four board limit. Watch the livestream (or catch a replay) here.

AC Birthdays

Ben Ainslie turned 40 yesterday, 5 February. He shares the date with Groupama Team France's Thomas Le Breton who turned 35. On New Year's day, ETNZ's Peter Burling celebrated his 26th birthday. Speaking of birthdays and sailors' ages...

No Sport for Old Men

Foiling multihulls are no place for old men. Or so the thinking goes. At age 54, Argentine Santiago Lange won the gold medal in the new Nacra 17 mixed multihull event in Rio. Nine months earlier he had a lung removed after being diagnosed with cancer. The Nacra will be upgraded to foil for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Last week at a conference in Sweden, Santi revealed that he will be campaigning for 2020. He'll be 58 by then...

Rumors from Auckland

Emirates Team New Zealand had previously said they would launch their race boat in late January and sail in Auckland during February before shipping the boat to Bermuda. That way their 28 day "blackout period" would be spent disassembling, shipping and re-assembling the boat. We have no news of the boat being launched yet. But we have heard that they were sailing very well in December, in their AC45X test boat. The rumor is that they laid out an AC race course and could sail an entire race without dropping off their foils - tacking upwind as well as downwind. We may get some more news when they launch in Auckland (soon?) and, of course, when they first sail on the Great Sound in late March.

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Reader Questions to "Ask Jack"

from Peter in Florida
ask jack!

About that Framework Agreement - doesn't the Deed of Gift prohibit the Defender from considering another challenge before the current one is decided?

Hello Peter, In practice, no. The Framework Agreement works in a similar fashion to clubs lining up the "hip pocket challenges" that I explained last week. In the past, the clubs in the Match have lined up potential challengers before the conclusion of the Match. That way they could avoid surprises like Sir Michael Fay and Mercury Bay Boat Club in 1987. The difference this time is that five of the six clubs in the current event have all agreed to have a hip pocket challenger who has agreed to the terms of the Framework Agreement. As long as one of those five teams wins in June, the Framework Agreement will work. Of course, if ETNZ wins, all bets are off.

That said, I suppose someone could challenge the the Framework Agreement in the New York courts, and millions of dollars in legal fees would get burned up arguing over what it means "to consider" a challenge. Here is the relevant sentence from the Deed of Gift: "And when a challenge from a Club fulfilling all the conditions required by this instrument has been received, no other challenge can be considered until the pending event has been decided." The defense lawyer would certainly argue that a challenge is not "considered" until it is accepted.

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