Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Prada Cup

The 12M had been consigned to History well before that, these are IACC class boats . Not Team NZ finest hour, SWMBO brother on the crew as he was for the wins in previous events, note the co-commentator is Jimmy Spithill! His heart rate mid race on Sunday whilst leading was 68-80 which gives you a clue how calculating and smooth the Prada campaign is at present, Sir Ben is pleased with tomorrow being delayed as Prada were obviously on a roll with momentum.
The forecast was too much wind anyway, though today it was wrong. We all hope that Ineos take some races or it could be over by Saturday.
For those interested you can watch live or delayed for free on Americas Cup .com Shirley Robertson Nathan Outteridge and Ken Read are knowledgeable and good commentators . I spent both days last weekend on the course, watching them live is a bit like Formula one -the difference between on screen and standing next to the track is pretty stark, we have screens on board but as they come past at about 100kph with the associated noise you really appreciate the skill in flying these big monohulls.
Hopefully Ben and Giles can engineer a winning start then we will see...

A Pity I am not up to posting pics, as two boats next to us were completely bedecked in Union Jacks and all on board in fancy dress, or not much dress!
After the fourth loss by Ineos they were playing the Stones" you cant always get what you want" on the most powerful stereo I have ever heard on a boat, its quite a party scene out there on the water though all are well behaved and navigating with care luckily.

Congrats to the Brits for winning the last race yesterday. Nice sailing, but seems that Luna Rossa was consistiently slower, both upwind and downwind. LR had a smaller jib, might be the reason. Exiting and competetive starts in both races. First race was interesting until the end of the second leg, the rest was only a guesswork of how much the LR would lead at the finish. Second race, I admit - was kind of interesting throughout and at least resembled true matchracing, but there was not much doubt about the win from early in the race. Still, I am happy for you Brits, this means we still have a competition. But I maintain my opinion of these boats and this kind or racing, hoping we see something different in 2024.

At least they've stopped the rot but at 1:5 it's hardly game on. However as was proven in 2013 that win could just be the start of a great come back.

Tonight will tell.

I can understand the feeling that the old 12metre class racing was closer and therefore more exciting to purists but I think some of that is down to the speed and therefore a 10second gap is much closer on a 12m than an AC75 so it's much easier to have both boats in shot and looking like they have a fight on their hands.

I seem to recall plenty of 12m races where one boat was 30 seconds or more ahead of the other but it somehow seemed tighter.

Anyway, let's see what happens tonight. Could be all over when we wake up tomorrow in the UK

Oops, there's the pessimist coming out in me. Come on Britannia you can do it

I am not saying that 12mR is the only way to go, I say that match racing should be match racing, not an ultra-high tech computerized drag race in super expensive machines that are so complex that they have extremely little in common with anything else that floats on the water. Untill now there has been very few races in which the result was not predictable a few minutes after the start. And due to the boat speed the duration of each race is so short that it is almost impossible to recover from a mistake, bad wind shift or difficult position. TV/sponsor/onlooker-friendly - yes. Spectacular speed - yes. Fascinating boat engineering - yes. True match racing - sorry, no.

Sounds just like Formular 1 cars....

Right, but F1 races are "fleet races", so there is always a close fight somerwhere, there are points to be gained and there is a next race coming up un a week or two with new possibilities. And there is the duration aspect. An F1 take more than an hour, usually aprox. 60 rounds round the track, pit stops, tyre changes etc. So there is more than one single opportunity to make your gains. Who would want to see an F1 race with two cars match racing each other going continously round the track a few times and then it is over? The beauty and exitement of for instance tennis (or soccer, for that matter) is it's simplicity. Now big boat sail racing can never reach that level of simplicity, there is always equipment and tecnology involved. But AC75 as match racers? Again, sorry, no.

7 to 1
Well done Italy. Clearly the better boat and better sailors

Indeed.

However I don't agree that LR had better sailors. Remember they lost 6-0 in the round robins which were held in windier conditions

Britannia was fast in heavy winds but was never going to compete in the lighter breezes. I don't know why but the Ineos team admitted to that all along.

Design flaw or just optimised for the wrong conditions?

Ah well, maybe Ben will have to go back to single handed one designs to prove he has still got it.

Or maybe he is a better fleet racer than match racer.

Personally, I think that would be fantastic. The perfect test of machine and driver skills but each to their own....

Just imagine for old time sake -James Hunt v Niki Lauda, no one else on the track no pit stops
20 laps, go your hardest