America’s Cup from a sailor’s view

Emirates Team New Zealand. File photo.

The court room battles resulting in the latest iteration of the America's Cup has had the unexpected effect of changing the culture and style of the yacht racing that is playing out in Bermuda this weekend.

The crews are smaller, the boats are smaller and there is only one boat per team.

The AC50 catamarans only have room for engines and elite sailors.

The racing is short course, high speed format that matches Olympic sailing rather than typical professional monohull sailing. Olympic sailors get more time on the water and face tougher tests, making them simply the best at the sport, says Canadian sailing writer Ben Remocker.

So far it's been the teams with the most immediate Olympic experience that are the ones with the most success, says Ben.

In the Louis Vuitton Cup the French with no Olympic sailors were quickly dispatched. BAR has Ainslie who is one cycle off and some muscle up front. Japan has Draper who was last Olympic sailing in 2007. But the top two Louis Vuitton teams of Artemis, and New Zealand are full of recent Olympic sailors.

Artemis has Outteridge and Jensen as current Olympians with Percy only one cycle away. New Zealand typically sails with four of six members of the 2016 Olympic squad. Oracle have only Slingsby - one cycle away from the Olympics at the back of the boat.

The more Olympic phenomenon may be directly linked to two fantastic duo's in Burling/Tuke and Outteridge/Jensen or it may be a reflection of the type of racing being done.

A comparison between ‘pro' and Olympic sailing can be taken from Oracle and Emirates Team NZ.

On board Oracle it's ‘pro' best practices. Slingsby the tactician, gives a running commentary of what the situation is, options, and what he'd like to do. Spithill takes in the info and commands the boat.

Team New Zealand is run like an Olympic doublehanded boat. The team (including Ashby) have a plan going into the race and jobs to do. As the race unfolds they see the same things, collaborate on modes when necessary and feel of the boat occasionally, but mostly feel the same things and react as appropriate to keep it fast at all times.

The helm calls the tacks and gybes when the situations unfold without much need for debate. There's no need to keep up verbal systems to keep a huge crew appraised of what the after guard is thinking. The maneouvres are standard, their jobs critical but heavily practiced and refined.

In a fast boat, Percy's cursing, Ainslie's willpower, and Slingslby's tactics mean little compared to a three man unit, Tuke, Ashby, and Burling in sync with boatspeed.

The foil control in particular is a system that in the hands of Tuke must make a huge difference to Burling. The on board shots of Tuke being 100 per cent focused on foil trim, tells you how highly critical it must be. Tuke dials in on a white marker he keeps about 4 inches out of the water on the leeward side. He seems to have analogue control of his main trimming control, keeping the boat very steady on ride height and cant. Leaving a critical piece of trim to a crew member will be second nature for Burling, with the crew on a 49er running the main sheet.

Burling will have total confidence in both Tuke and Ashby to run the foils and mainsail to exacting preciseness and their pre-racing plan, and he can largely ignore these items except for occasional check in's to ensure they're all in the same mode as each other.

Jimmy Spithill has notches on his steering wheel much like tip tronic gears in a car. How precise that is compared to Team NZ's analogue is unknown.

But even if the movement is precise enough there is no way Spithill can dedicate the same focus to the job as Blair Tuke can.

Any crew really on their game will notice when the skipper starts looking around, and being just a small bit off is likely to be a frequent occurrence on Oracle given how much responsibility Spithill is handling, says Ben.

'When the pressure is on Jimmy, and he needs to make decisions, or check out the competition, or simply focus on his driving, the board control may fall out of perfect.”

He's looking to see if there's a controls change.

Team NZ's head of design Dan Bernasconi believes the biggest gains Spithill and his crew can make at this point will be out on the water.

"They look to have changed the way they set up their foils, and the way they're trimming their wing. There's obviously a limit to the changes they can physically make to the boat in five days, but there are a lot of changes you can make to the way you sail the boat."

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