So what went wrong with the Ben Ainslie team?

dgadee

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Wasn't it the other way about? Poor before xmas and better in the semi finals?

I wonder, though, what is the future for the America's Cup. Three teams enter with the US spending $10 million for each of their four races. Great technology but not so great if very, very few can afford it.
 
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Wasn't it the other way about? Poor before xmas and better in the semi finals?

I wonder, though, what is the future for the America's Cup. Three teams enter with the US spending $10 million for each of their four races. Great technology but not so great if very, very few can afford it.

Flaming summed it up very well when he said that it is always been about rich men willy waving comparison. I interpreted that as it it is not about the winning but the promotion of what these very wealthy individuals do that is important, the drive. After all, they all know that there is only one winner and the probability is that it won't be them, they are not stupid people. Dennis Conner stated that after he reclaimed the America's Cup, he was at his most smug when he hoisted the Pepsi spinnaker after winning as it snubbed Americas elite corporations that refused to back him in this campaign. So, we have a competition that is about rich people demonstrating their wealth and corporations being exposed through advertising to a global market. Ineos and Belstaff have went from shitty employer at a run down Scottish refinery and stinking waterproofs with a dubious reputation for keeping the water out, to Global Brands that represent success and quality and all that his best of British, just by being there. The sailing tech isa means to an end, thats all.

I think the future is assured as long as sailing is a high end activity that gives a perception of wealth and success to a global audience. I think the spend is trivial to these people, despite the size of it. Ratcliff is worth about $17 billion, he can afford his company to sponsor it. Others will follow him.
 

dgadee

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I think the future is assured as long as sailing is a high end activity that gives a perception of wealth and success to a global audience. I think the spend is trivial to these people, despite the size of it. Ratcliff is worth about $17 billion, he can afford his company to sponsor it. Others will follow him.

But surely they want to be amongst a few other willy wavers? Or it loses its glamour?
 
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But surely they want to be amongst a few other willy wavers? Or it loses its glamour?

Well, it hasn't lots its attraction yet and I doubt will any time soon. The masses sit and watch F1 and look at all the losers in that race, yet still they compete. This is elite sport both in terms of the funders and the sportspersons taking part. The elite of the elite, in their minds.
 

Biggles Wader

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Not being an expert but it seemed to me that Ainslie was out foxed at the start of almost every race and the Italians were very slightly quicker almost everywhere. When they got ahead they were thence able to stay there and choose their ground. The conditions were stable and predictable so there was nothing the British boat could do.
 
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bdh198

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LR were at the top of their game and maxing everything they could from the boat. The boat was ever so slightly faster, was able to point just a little bit higher and had that light wind advantage. When they got the starts the only chance INEOS had was either a lucky wind shift or LR messing up. Neither happened to any significant degree and in those races LR just pulled away winning comfortably. LR having that very slight edge over INEOS was made all the more apparent in the race where INEOS won, LR were only seconds behind at the finish and threatening them the entire way round - not something INEOS ever really repeated when LR were in front.

Quite simply the better team won on the day, and they’ll have my support in the final in the hope of bringing the cup, and the next campaign, back to Europe.
 

kof

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Well I disagree about the similar design - the bow section of Ineos looks very different to Luna Rossa. Plus the foils on LR appear to be way slippier than other boats which opens up so many options.

I think the main problem with the British boat were the starts and the fact that it NEEDED stronger wind. LR was great in the light stuff but also good enough in stronger winds. Ineos was good in the stronger stuff but terrible in the light winds.

The starts - well if you take somewhat timid stats, couple them with light winds that makes your boat slower to tack then it can all be lost in the first 5 minutes after the start. They really needed to dominate the starts and get away clean. The somewhat narrow courses did not help with this - longer tacks especially the first after the start would have helped.

Let me also add that in the Christmas rounds, the crews were still making handling mistakes and this could then be exploited. In the finals there were so few mistakes made by anyone and that took away many opportunities.

I am mystified how their performance could be so good before Christmas and so bad recently. Excuses about light airs and the boat design seem bizarre as the Italian boat looks very similar to the British boat. Any ideas?
 

Bathdave

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LR were at the top of their game and maxing everything they could from the boat. The boat was ever so slightly faster, was able to point just a little bit higher and had that light wind advantage. When they got the starts the only chance INEOS had was either a lucky wind shift or LR messing up. Neither happened to any significant degree and in those races LR just pulled away winning comfortably. LR having that very slight edge over INEOS was made all the more apparent in the race where INEOS won, LR were only seconds behind at the finish and threatening them the entire way round - not something INEOS ever really repeated when LR were in front.

Quite simply the better team won on the day, and they’ll have my support in the final in the hope of bringing the cup, and the next campaign, back to Europe.
I completely agree with this read ...the margins are very very small, but it was clear that LR is slightly faster especially upwind.
I found it really interesting that LR had added an aerodynamic fairing over the crew since the previous rounds, and their sail shape right down to the deck was smoother...both may have contributed to the extra drive they seemed to find
 

Bathdave

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At risk of thread drift ...I was really struggling to understand how penalties were discharged as the series unfolded...probably poor commentary coverage (which I generally found excellent) as they never really explained that ....clearly no 360’ turns!!

I think I finally got it that you needed to drop behind your opponent, today they said 50m but yesterday Ben got very pissed off that they wouldn’t discharge his penalty, even though he was clearly well more than 50m back.

i also don’t get the overearly penalty ...both over early, so penalties cancelled, despite fact one was over more early than the other...both boats having to recross may have given a very different outcome, depending on who managed the manoeuvre best ...

I get it that these are very different boats to traditonal ones, and the speeds they are doing mean that traditional techniques may not apply ...it just seems to me that the penalties are too small to make avoiding a penalty of critical importance, and that seems to me to devalue match racing
 

st599

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At risk of thread drift ...I was really struggling to understand how penalties were discharged as the series unfolded...probably poor commentary coverage (which I generally found excellent) as they never really explained that ....clearly no 360’ turns!!

The definition of penalty turns don't include an angle, just the number of tacks and gybes. If you're sailing in apparent wind, how far would you have to steer to do both?

Even in fast dinghys, you see penalties being taken as part of a manoeuvre they were planning on doing anyway.
 

chrishscorp

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From some of the earlier races I see the Italians were keeping the windward foil in the water longer than INEOS who were lifting it straight after the turn, this did seem to hold the boat on a better course it may also have provided some lift to the LR boat.

The LR main also sweeps the deck there is some speculation the deck and sail are using magnets it certainly seems to maintain a very nice shape all the time.
I havent seen pictures myself but there was some discussion online, the NZ team have somehow a lower deck so there is more main sail if this is the case then the use of a boom is looking somewhat dated.

Lots of guessing going on we may get a better idea once the cup is won.
 

Seven Spades

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They lost because LR was simply a faster boat. I think that LR had better sails than INEOS. If you watched the semi's LR lost loads of time at each gate making the turns, the boat lost height and was unstable whereas INEOS was very smooth and beat LR. LR fixed whatever was wrong with their boat in the semi's and came to the final with a boat working well on every point of sail, in the turns and in light winds. If you looked at the race that Ineos won they had put on a larger head sail and got out of the box first. I wonder if the bad starts were because they were bad or because the boat was not performing well.
 

RJJ

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They lost because LR was simply a faster boat. I think that LR had better sails than INEOS. If you watched the semi's LR lost loads of time at each gate making the turns, the boat lost height and was unstable whereas INEOS was very smooth and beat LR. LR fixed whatever was wrong with their boat in the semi's and came to the final with a boat working well on every point of sail, in the turns and in light winds. If you looked at the race that Ineos won they had put on a larger head sail and got out of the box first. I wonder if the bad starts were because they were bad or because the boat was not performing well.
The bad starts looked to me a combination of (1) needing to be timid in the light, because falling off the foils would be disastrous (2) needing to be aggressive in the breeze, because unable to catch and overtake (3) something in the package that gave LR a tactical advantage. How often did we hear about LR's "high mode"? If you can't do "high mode" and stay on your foils to the same extent as LR, it's pretty hard to contest the start.
 

DJE

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At risk of thread drift ...I was really struggling to understand how penalties were discharged as the series unfolded...probably poor commentary coverage (which I generally found excellent) as they never really explained that ....clearly no 360’ turns!!

I think I finally got it that you needed to drop behind your opponent, today they said 50m but yesterday Ben got very pissed off that they wouldn’t discharge his penalty, even though he was clearly well more than 50m back.

i also don’t get the overearly penalty ...both over early, so penalties cancelled, despite fact one was over more early than the other...both boats having to recross may have given a very different outcome, depending on who managed the manoeuvre best ...

I get it that these are very different boats to traditonal ones, and the speeds they are doing mean that traditional techniques may not apply ...it just seems to me that the penalties are too small to make avoiding a penalty of critical importance, and that seems to me to devalue match racing
You're not the only one!
 

kof

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From the umpires position it was simple. Both boats over would usually mean more decisions to be made, but INEOS then incurred a second penalty which meant they were always going to have to drop back behind LR. So easiest is for them to call the over early a wash and just sort out the second penalty.

The issue with Ben being pissed off was that they had good speed and it's hard to slow it down to shake off the penalty. Remember this is not a human deciding they need to drop back more, it's all done using the systems on board and on shore.

It's interesting to view the onboard (port and starboard videos on youtube) where you can listen to the complete audio of the crew leg by leg. LR basically had more speed in the tacks , better pointing and as Ben said on one of the beats "they have legs on us". They just couldn't live with the speed of LR even though it was probably just 0.5 - 1kt difference.

At risk of thread drift ...I was really struggling to understand how penalties were discharged as the series unfolded...probably poor commentary coverage (which I generally found excellent) as they never really explained that ....clearly no 360’ turns!!

I think I finally got it that you needed to drop behind your opponent, today they said 50m but yesterday Ben got very pissed off that they wouldn’t discharge his penalty, even though he was clearly well more than 50m back.

i also don’t get the overearly penalty ...both over early, so penalties cancelled, despite fact one was over more early than the other...both boats having to recross may have given a very different outcome, depending on who managed the manoeuvre best ...

I get it that these are very different boats to traditonal ones, and the speeds they are doing mean that traditional techniques may not apply ...it just seems to me that the penalties are too small to make avoiding a penalty of critical importance, and that seems to me to devalue match racing
 
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