America's Cup, race practice intensifying in Cagliari and Jeddah

It was 'Super Sunday' for Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli and Alinghi Red Bull Racing with both teams upping the two-boat ante with high pressure race practice and demanding pre-start drills. What both teams are looking for is consistency and technique accuracy whilst building in trust and optimising their race software.

In Cagliari, Sardinia it was a small weather window that Luna Rossa eagerly grabbed and docked out both their LEQ12 and their one-design AC40 with Francesco Bruni and Jimmy Spithill taking control of the LEQ12 whilst Marco Gradoni and Ruggero Tita rekindled their sensational Jeddah Preliminary Regatta pairing on the AC40. This is a team with talent in abundance and on the water, despite the obvious speed differential between the two boats, put on an aggressive display of match-racing and pre-start action.

Where the AC40 appears to have an upper-hand over the LEQ12 is in manoeuvring with a very sharp turn rate and also similar speed when the wind drops to 6-8 knots as it did just after midday. The lighter hull and all-up weight of the AC40 allows it to pop to flight rapidly but, as can be expected, once up and going, the LEQ12 is a real weapon and just grinds away ahead. Not to be fazed, Gradoni and Tita pushed hard in the pre-starts and put the battle-hardened team of Spithill and Bruni into uncomfortable places through excellent start-box management and the young guns are certainly giving the Luna Rossa management plenty to think about when it comes to selecting the helms on their new in-build AC75.

Speaking afterwards, Jimmy Spithill gave his thoughts on how the sailing team is developing together saying: “We've been rotating a lot. We've got a lot of good young talent coming through and so last few days Marco and I have been on the red boat and then we swapped again today, Cecco jumped on, so it's been great I mean with a simulator training and then getting out and sailing every day, the comms are working pretty well.”

Jimmy was certainly feeling the benefit of the two-boat race programme despite the speed differences, saying: “Yeah look it was back and forwards and it was really both boats just trying to get used to their race software you know there's still quite a few glitches in there so yeah just getting used to that and just learning as a group, coming back spending time in the simulator and spending some time with Jacopo (Plazzi) and Philippe (Presti), you know we're going into the racing and that’ll come up pretty quick."

And talking about that speed differential, Jimmy added: “It depends on the conditions, obviously when the conditions are up the red boat’s pretty quick and as we get to the bottom end, the AC40 becomes pretty quick, you know pretty good accelerating so it's great for the starting drills what we're doing today we got a heap out of it.”

Meanwhile over in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the day was given over to proper high-pressure racing with three planned races in, once again, perfect conditions with the mercury touching 32 degrees and a solid afternoon breeze of 12-17 knots. The management microscope is really on the sailors of Alinghi Red Bull Racing as the crunch time for selecting the helms and key crew draws ever closer. If today was an examination then the top of the class was abundantly clear with Arnaud Psarofaghis and Maxime Bachelin totally dominating the racing, winning all three races by relatively comfortable margins and looking super in control over the Phil Robertson and Nicolas Charbonnier pairing. It’s becoming very clear that Arnaud and Max have quite a special relationship and although we’re not privy to the onboard comms during this recon period, their transitions and hand-overs appear very crisp and clean. When behind they just go to work and make logical decisions between them and when ahead they proved to be very capable front-runners with minimal mistakes.

Speaking afterwards, Maxime Bachelin, truly one of the nicest guys in the America’s Cup world gave a little insight into the mentality that is building in this training block saying: “We always want to win the races and we have this small pressure to not have the other laughing about us because we don't win, so we just have this small pressure but it's nice for racing.”

Talking about the goals for the day, Maxime added: The plan here in Jeddah is always to start on the windward side, we think it's a good game as it's always better on the right and this was our bigger plan and yeah the starting on time, managing to stay on the foils, not pushing too much on the other boat, that was the goal of the day.”

Tomorrow (Monday) is rare off-day for the team who will be back into it for the rest of the week thereafter. Fascinating training camp in Jeddah for the Swiss who are making the absolute best of the conditions and the opportunity. (Magnus Wheatley)