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CHAPTER 1
Poised on a knife edge
Day 2 of the Challenger Final was reckoned to be the turning point of the 35th America's Cup for Emirates Team New Zealand.
The Kiwis came away with two wins from three races, despite being caught out with their light-weather daggerboards in a breeze that rose and fell during the afternoon.
After their America's Cup win, Emirates Team New Zealand skipper Glenn Ashby picked that crucial day as being a major confidence booster for the campaign, its direction and capability.
'My thinking was that if we could race well against Artemis in breezy conditions — given that they had beaten Oracle in 17 races in a row — then we possibly might have a chance at the Cup,' he said.
As the only crew member with previous America's Cup experience aboard the New Zealand Challenger, Ashby says he knew they were going to have a big battle with Artemis Racing in the Challenger Final.
'If we could outsail them in these conditions, we could keep on our path and keep improving ourselves and the boat,' said the 2008 Olympic Silver medallist and multiple world champion in several multihull classes.
It was a dramatic day on the Great Sound in Bermuda, which is formed from the sunken inner crater of a 30 million-year-old volcano, located 640 nautical miles off the US coast in the Atlantic Ocean.
Three races were scheduled.
After being treated to almost a month of fine weather, the skies opened over Bermuda as a front passed over the Atlantic Ocean archipelago dropping much-needed rain. The downpour was preceded by a spectacular thunderstorm overnight with lightning and it was still raining as the boats left the team bases located in the historic Royal Naval Dockyard, a few hundred metres from the race course.
Team meteorologists, critical to making the correct call on foil selection, were perplexed with the change in weather system, with a front set to pass over Bermuda.
On the morning of the second day of racing with the New Zealand team poised on a 2–1 lead in the best of nine series, rain was falling, and winds had been up to 25 kts in strength — beyond the upper limit for racing.
'Everything is on the table,' Race Director Iain Murray told the mid-morning media briefing. 'When the team forecasters are ringing us and saying "What do you know?" I think that is indicative of the situation out there.'
Murray put up an overhead showing two weather sources predicting winds from the south-west, and explained that forecast was the thinking of the teams. However, as he spoke the wind was blowing at 20 kts from the opposite direction — north-east.
Nearer to race start time, the breeze dropped in strength to 6 kts gusting 10 kts. The right strength but opposite direction of the forecasts. Predictwind.com, the weather forecasting application developed by Jon Bilger, a forecaster for Alinghi, twice winner of the America's Cup, put the wind strength at 10–14 kts at race start time. Even the independent forecasters couldn't agree.
The sudden-death Challenger Final was poised on a knife edge.
Emirates Team New Zealand had emerged from the first day's racing with a lucky come-from-behind, 2–1 scorecard — after Artemis Racing's helmsman Nathan Outteridge slipped on a crossbeam, after getting caught by an unexpected change in G-force, and went overboard during a critical tack. The Swedish Challenger withdrew from the race. 'Not the first time it has happened,' he quipped later. Emirates Team New Zealand was ahead before the mishap.
With a 2–1 points score and a possible three wins from the three races scheduled on Day 2 of the Challenger Final, the Kiwis were within striking distance of collecting the required 5 points and becoming the Challenger for their third successive America's Cup Match.
The confused weather data meant that correct foil selection was even more critical to the performance of the 50-ft wingsailed catama-rans, which fly above the water on hydrofoils at up to four times the actual windspeed.
Generally speaking, two sets of dagger-boards (as the foils in the centre of the AC50 are known) are allowed. Most teams opt for a light-weather set to provide more lift more quickly, and a second all-purpose set for medium to heavy air winds. The all-purpose daggerboards are narrower and, because of the reduced size, offer less drag through the water, and are therefore faster. The light-air daggerboards are bigger, lift the 2400-kg catamarans out of the water more quickly and are faster in lighter weather.
Making the wrong daggerboard selection for the conditions can put one boat at a significant disadvantage — if their opponent has made the correct choice. But, of course, if both teams have their weather forecast and foil choice wrong, then it becomes a question of how far the incorrect daggerboard choice can effectively operate beyond its designed range of wind.
Earlier in the regatta there had been at least a couple of instances when highly fancied teams had scored an upset loss against a bottom-of-the-table team, attributed to the wrong choice of foils.
To complicate matters even further the foil-selection call had ideally to be made the night before to allow shore crews time to prepare the race boat. Official measurement checks were scheduled for nine o'clock on the morning of the race, and the foil selections were locked in for the day. Given those processes and schedule, it is not possible to rectify an incorrect foil selection between races — the teams were stuck with their decision for the duration of the day's racing.
At this stage of the Challenger Selection Series, or Playoffs as organisers had named them for this America's Cup, the fate of the teams in their four-year, $90 million America's Cup programmes hung on the accuracy of a single weather forecast.
Tension mounted as the two teams realised that they had each made a different call on foil selection. Emirates Team New Zealand had opted for a choice of lighter air foils while Artemis Racing had opted for their all-purpose set. One would be right and the other wrong — with the latter's America's Cup campaign hanging in the balance.
The game looked to be up for Emirates Team New Zealand as winds puffed to 15 kts at the start of Race 4, well past the expected range for their light-air boards. The body language was palpable aboard the Kiwi chase boat as the coaches and analysts realised they had fitted the wrong boards and could be on the losing end of a 4–2 scoreline in a couple of hours.
'Our forecast was different from Team New Zealand — going out there it was gusting 15 to 16 knots — and we were quite happy with our configuration,' said Nathan Outteridge after the racing. 'But on a day like today, the weather can be quite unstable and change quickly.'
The first race of the day and Race 4 of the Challenger Final got away to an even start. Artemis Racing, helmed by Nathan Outteridge, an Olympic Gold and Silver medallist in the Olympic 49er skiff class, led from start to finish, winning by a 15-second margin, with the boats hitting 40 kts on the final leg to the finish.
That was despite a near disaster for the Swedes as they crashed off their foils at the end of the final beat to windward and briefly lost control, with the Kiwis having to take avoiding action and unsuccessfully protesting.
The result evened the Finals score at two races apiece.
The pendulum swung the Kiwis' way in the second race of the day, or Race 5 in the Final Series, as the breeze dropped to 11 kts at the race start time.
Outteridge beat his old adversary in the 49er, Peter Burling, over the start line and led around Mark 1, with the America's Cup Class (ACC) yachts hitting 43 kts — in just 11 kts of breeze and flat water. That's almost four times the speed of the wind.
As the breeze lightened, Emirates Team New Zealand found conditions to their liking and more within the range of their foil selection. They passed the Swedish team on the second leg and had an easy win after Sweden withdrew for the second time in the five races sailed so far in the Final Series.
Both boats suffered issues with their onboard hydraulic and electrical systems. Emirates Team New Zealand had support crew aboard between the first two races working in the wingsail trimmer's cockpit. Artemis Racing gave up in Race 5, preferring to resolve their electrical issues caused by a faulty switch, and made the decision to fix the issue and be ready for the final race of the day.
Outteridge put the switch issue down to the heavy rain getting into the electrics and causing one of the buttons to misfire and latch in the on position. 'It occurred in the first race and we couldn't fault-find before the second race. When it presented itself again in the second race, we then had a better idea of where it was coming from. So instead of sailing out the course we decided to use the time to fix the problem, so we were ready for the third race.'
The breeze stayed around 11–12 kts for the start of Race 6, with another even start. Artemis once again had the lead after the high-speed reach to the first mark. Outteridge led for the first three legs, with Burling snatching a narrow lead after a downwind leg to round Mark 4, just 1 second ahead, or half a boat length.
New Zealand extended to a 15-second lead sailing into the wind on Leg 5 and looked set to move on to Match Point.
Going into Mark 6, the penultimate turning point of the six-leg course, the young Kiwi helmsman made a serious misjudgement of the approach angle to the mark as the catamarans hit 35 kts in just 12 kts of wind.
'It was my mistake, I misjudged the layline for the other gate,' Burling explained after the race.
'The racing is so close that if you make one mistake, a good lead can turn to nothing. Some of the guys in the chase boats say it took a couple of years off their lives,' he joked.
Emirates Team New Zealand almost hit the mark and then gybed without sufficient hydraulic pressure, bringing the red and black catamaran to a near stop, while the Swedish yacht was on a fast approach to windward and headed for the finish.
The New Zealanders' secret weapon, their four 'cyclors' using pedal power to generate the hydraulic pressure necessary to sail the AC50, came into their own, and quickly generated sufficient power to get Aotearoa moving again. It was a bow-to-bow drag race for the short leg to the finish line.
Incredibly, Emirates Team New Zealand held on to win by a 1-second margin as both boats swung their bows across the finish line in front of the 10,000 fans in the stadium, who rose to their feet cheering, as the Kiwi crew moved to 4–2 in the series.
Outteridge summed the day up this way: 'We were going really nicely in the first race, and we were able to hold on to the lead and win. In the second race, again we got another good start, but the wind went a bit lighter. Team New Zealand had better pace than us upwind, and we had to go into an aggressive tactics mode.
'In the third race, we were more evenly matched.'
'We did have the wrong boards on,' said Emirates Team New Zealand coach Murray Jones after the race. 'That gave us some limitations. Pete and the boys did a fantastic job of doing what they had to do, with what they had on. We were very happy to get out of the day with two wins out of three races,' the now six-times America's Cup winner added.
For the first time in the regatta, Emirates Team New Zealand seemed to have a game plan and stuck to it. As Peter Burling explained at the post-race media conference, the team was not too bothered about the start, but their focus was on being in contact with their opponent at Mark 2.
'Our main goal is to get to the bottom mark in good shape and then chip away from there,' Burling said. Without saying too much, Burling disclosed that the team had a very good 'high mode' where they could, if they wished, both sail closer to the wind than their competitor and at a faster speed. 'We just work into a high groove.'
It had also become apparent that while the brain might be willing, the arm-grinders on the other boats were not physically able to match a sustained close-tacking duel competing against the leg power of the Kiwi cyclors.
The best strategy to beat the Kiwis seemed to be to get in front and hope to stay there — applying the match-racing adage of it being one matter to catch up, but another to pass. Occasionally, this strategy would win a race, but it became increasingly difficult as the Kiwis could just tack away with minimal speed loss, and then keep throwing in foiling tacks until the cover was broken.
So far, twice in the Challenger Final, the royal blue-hulled Artemis Racing had let Emirates Team New Zealand off the hook. And, given slightly different circumstances, at the end of the second day's racing it could well have been the Kiwis on two wins and Artemis on four. But there is luck in sailing, and Peter Burling is a lucky sailor. Artemis, on the other hand, had a string of 'if only' situations where the game had just not gone their way — including an almost unprecedented situation when an umpire call in the Qualifiers was reversed two hours after being made.
Emirates Team New Zealand went into Day 3 having to win just one of three races.
Lighter winds were forecast for the day, with the windspeed being in single digits for the second time in a month at just 8 kts for the start. These were conditions for which the New Zealanders had optimised their Challenger, after analysing 50 years of Bermudian weather records. They were the conditions in which they had spent two months training alone in Auckland, while their competitors had enjoyed late-scheduled practice racing in Bermuda — organised after it was too late for Emirates Team New Zealand to change their travel and shipping plans.
For the Kiwis, Day 3 of the Challenger Final was their check-in time with reality.
They had come to Bermuda with the expectation of being fast in the light and being able to execute foiling tacks and gybes better than their already resident competitors. Plus, they expected to be able to foil earlier, and sail better angles than the other five teams. Day 3 was their first real test in the conditions expected for the Match in six days' time.
Regatta Director Iain Murray had one attempt at getting a race under way on the Great Sound on the scheduled start time of 2.12 pm and in a breeze that had been piping up to 15 kts before the start.
For a time, it looked as if the Kiwis would be in difficulty again, having once more opted for their gull-wing shaped light-weather boards.
The race had its dramas, and Artemis Racing was a lot closer, even better than the New Zealanders. But racing was abandoned after the wind died completely on Leg 4. Those ashore and afloat were able to witness the weird phenomenon of the AC50s, capable of sailing at four times the windspeed, being unable to sail efficiently to reach the downwind mark because of light winds and some difficult-to-explain apparent wind physics.
After a wait of 90 minutes, Race 7 got under way again in 8 kts of wind, and right on the start time limit — dictated by the required finish time of 5 pm.
Emirates Team New Zealand won the start, again, and led at Mark 1. This time there was no catching the Kiwis, and their margin steadily increased up and down wind with the winning margin being recorded at 56 seconds. That result gave Emirates Team New Zealand their fifth win in the best of nine series and they went forward to be the Challenger for the 35th America's Cup, for the third time in the last three multi-challenger Matches for the America's Cup.
The scene was set for the New Zealanders to have a chance of redemption after their 2013 drubbing in San Francisco at the hands of Oracle Team USA.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Lone Wolf"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Richard Gladwell.
Excerpted by permission of Upstart Press Ltd.
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