America’s Cup: Prada Cup Semi-Final

This was it, do or die for the American campaign and the chance for the Italians to move straight to the Prada Cup final. The breeze was now up to 16kts throwing another set of conditions into the mix. Could this deliver the difference required to keep the Prada Cup semi-final alive for another day?
This time American Magic were entering the start zone from the left-hand side on port tack and did so with perfect timing and at pace. Next came a hint of a different strategy as American Magic headed out towards the right-hand side of the pre-start zone.

But while this might have been a subtly different opening move, Luna Rossa were still focussed on what had worked before and were aiming to gain control in the pre-start.
As both boats closed in on the starting line as the clock counted down, American Magic were to leeward hoping to force Luna Rossa up, but they weren’t close enough and didn’t have the pace to accelerate into a controlling position. Luna Rossa took the start while American Magic were forced to tack off onto port.
American hopes now were that the right-hand side of the course would be favoured, but at the first cross it was anything but as Luna Rossa passed 130m ahead.
This was not looking good for American Magic, they were on the defensive as Luna Rossa controlled the game perfectly once again. Poised, polished and perfect, it was difficult to see how American Magic could take this race unless the Italians made a mistake. At this stage there was precious little evidence to support anything other than another Italian win.

In fact, things were about to get worse for American Magic as their starboard cant arm refused to go down ahead of a tack onto port. Eventually it did, but not before they had overstood the layline into Gate 1.

By the time the Americans rounded they were 45sec behind, but their troubles weren’t over yet as techincal isses continued. Then came a boundary infringement and a penalty, not that it made much difference, the distance to Luna Rossa was now 1500m.

By the time the Americans rounded Gate 3 Luna Rossa were 2min 42sec ahead. By Gate 4 the time difference was 2min 36, the distance over 2,000m.
Only a disaster on the part of the Italians would reverse what looked like the inevitable. As it happened the breeze had built further and keeping a cool calm and collected was becoming increasingly important to avoid tripping up.

A few minutes later Luna Rossa crossed the finish line to win their fourth race in a row, a win that now launches them to the Prada Cup final against INEOS Team UK.
Their victory had been well deserved. Since the start of the semi-final the Italian performance had been pitch perfect across a wide range of conditions, in just a few days between the Round Robin and the semi-final they had turned their performance around.

“Now for the INEOS boys,” was the call as they crossed the finish.
While they would doubtless celebrate this win, the Italian team’s focus had already shifted.

QUOTES FROM THE RACE COURSE

“I think American Magic have done a fantastic job being back after what they have gone through. Their boat was a good boat, their team was a great team and it’s sad because they are great competitors. If we keep improving the performance of the boat, with this speed, there will be some very good racing against Ben Ainslie and his Britannia. It’s all about improving, improving, improving.
In the first race of the day we sailed better upwind, we know that our foils are a little bit bigger and we can play the high mode strategically in some moments of the race. We needed it.”

“The last four races weren’t our best but the highest praise for the entire American Magic team overcoming what we did to get the boat back out on the water, it would have been easy to stop. It’s obviously disappointing. There’s not a person inside our team that likes losing, so in that you have 135 Type A personalities all pushing for the same goal, the same result.
I think what you saw when Patriot got back out on the water was a high level of resolve from the entire team to make sure not let the programme end like that.
I have nothing but pride for what we’ve done over the last 3 and half years, obviously our measure is the result sheet so without question that is the most disappointing part, but all we can do is take it on the chin, understand our strengths and weaknesses from here, and move the whole thing forward. If we’re fortunate enough to be back in the 37th America’s Cup we’ll learn from these mistakes and we’ll be better for it”.

Despite the Herculean effort of putting PATRIOT back on the water, American Magic are now eliminated from the PRADA Cup.

Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli jump rightfully to the Final against INEOS TEAM UK less than 2 weeks away. The Italians who seem to have find the pace after a limping Round Robin will be hard opponent to beat for the British team.

With such change in fortunes in only 9 days of racing since the first AC75 match on the 17th of December, it’s impossible to predict who will be the 36th America’s Cup Challenger and there is plenty to watch out for in the coming weeks.

The 13-race Final between the two leading teams, will start on the 13th of February, the first team to score seven points will win the PRADA Cup and face the Defender, Emirates Team New Zealand.