America's Cup: intense’ pre-start practice for the Kiwis

Well, this was an interesting session. Buy your popcorn, sit back, and be entertained by the very best in the business throwing two AC40s around like they stole them. Ignore the fact that one of the boats is in LEQ12 mode still with cameras on the wings, and boasting a handy speed advantage, and cheer on for the underdog – you won’t be disappointed.

Out on a pitch-perfect Hauraki Gulf with flat water and an initial 12-15 knots that dropped off, Emirates Team New Zealand put on a thoroughly entertaining display with Peter Burling and Nathan Outteridge pitting themselves against the hard-charging Josh Junior and Sam Meech who gave little quarter and zero respect to their counterparts. Fabulous, close quarter pre-start practice, at pace, over 12 starts and three races, with just about everything on display from desperate ducks and dives to feints, trails, speed losses and builds with all the action taking place, seemingly, in the final run in.

One of the big goals, especially in these rocket-ship AC40s is to get the other boat off the foil. Do that and it’s literally ‘game over’ but achieving it is tough and one of the big take-aways from today’s session is that if the helm attempts one degree too much on the turning radius, it is absolutely all over. The AC40 gets a little bit of sideways on it, the grip is lost and before you know it, you’re down in displacement and looking for an ejector seat - and an excuse to Ray Davies afterwards.

Both teams today executed well, but as the session wore on, the intensity built and despite the speed advantage and pointing ability of the LEQ12 (as you would expect) once off the line, Josh and Sam figured it out and went at it harder and harder in the starting box. Success came quickly on several occasions and the value of the session was more than assured. Take-aways aplenty, the coaching staff will be poring over the video in the capture session afterwards with plenty of ‘woulda, shoulda, coulda’ coming back from the sailors.

Great to watch from the outside and speaking with Sam Meech afterwards it sounded like it was even better onboard: “It's awesome, it's a lot of fun, it’s pretty full on. We're getting through a lot of starts in a pretty short amount of time but the racing is really close and it's pretty intense in those pre-starts...For me it’s a massive change. In the big boat I was cycling and back into this one driving so yeah big change but it's good fun, driving these small boats is pretty awesome so you got to take the opportunity when you can.”

Talking about what it’s like measuring up to a patently faster boat in the LEQ12, Sam commented: “It's a little bit harder but yeah the way we're doing it, if you're pushing hard it's pretty good and it's still hard to get an overlap when the boat is a little bit faster so that's good fun but yeah be nice to have a little bit more speed back on...The team’s put a lot of work into what they're doing in these pre-starts and there's nothing really the same as what we're doing here, so that makes it a little bit hard to get practise outside sailing the AC40s really.”

Rotating members of the Youth & Women’s team into the boat as the session came to an end for the sail back in (the Youth & Women docked the boats out early and sailed on until dusk), Sam added: “Pretty excited it's good to get the Youth and Women out there you know they're getting good sailing either side of our sessions so we’re pretty lucky actually, it’s a good programme we just jump on, sail’s already up and jump off and they sail the boat in and so it's good for us and awesome for them to get such good amount of time out sailing.”

Great session from the Kiwis who are ramping up this race-training block with a no sacred cow approach. Everything’s on the table. The search for racing perfection goes on. Watch the video – it’s good. Very good. (Magnus Wheatley)

On-Water Recon Report – Emirates Team New Zealand: Emirates Team New Zealand set out for a two boat sailing day, for day 76 of sailing LEQ12. With the Youth and Women's team's itching to get time in the AC40 ahead of their events later in the year, they rigged up early and left the dock at 11am heading down the harbour and got into a sailing session between North Head and Browns Island. In the Youth and Women's sailing rotation today they had Liv Mackay, Molly Meech, Oscar Gunn, Leonard Takahashi, Josh Armit, Jo Aleh, Gemma Jones, Veerle ten Have.

With puffy conditions and some more wind than yesterday's session the Youth and Women's team at times struggled with some manoeuvres however continued to show improvement throughout the sailing session. The team rolled through a few different combinations of positions onboard within the 2-hour sailing block they completed.

The LEQ12 and the rest of the sailing team joined the Youth and Women's team on the water just before 2pm. While LEQ12 with the normal team onboard completed some warm-up laps, the team on the one-design AC40 swapped over to be, Josh Junior, Sam Meech, Marcus Hansen, and Gemma Jones. Some quick warm-up laps from both teams and a course laid by Chase One, the team rolled straight into practice starts.

With some fast-paced match racing the teams worked hard to keep themselves ahead off the start. During the starts, the LEQ12 seemed to have an advantage over the AC40, winning the start more often than not. At times they seemed to be able to utilise the speed advantage to regain control where they would otherwise struggled. Even with said speed advantage it would go back and forth as to who would win the start, further showing the requirements for good sailing and starting tactics.

With 12 starts and 3 practice races completed, the LEQ12 sailed down the harbour and stopped right outside the base to de-rig while the Youth and Women's teams jumped back into the OD boat to make further use of the dying light.