Louis Vuitton Cup, Luna Rossa doesn’t give up and catches up with Britannia: it’s 3-3

John

By John

Exciting: there is no other way to define the battle of class and positions between Luna Rossa and Ineos Britannia in the fierce final of the Louis Vuitton Cup, which will decide the best of 13 matches against the challenger of the Defender team New Zealand at the 37th Americas Cup.

On today’s recovery day, after the flat calm that had resulted in a stalemate on Saturday, and yesterday’s 2-2 due to Luna’s penalty for an accident on the mainsail, the beautiful sea of ​​Barcelona with a strong wind of 17-18 nodes has offered an exciting spectacle, with the two fireballs launched on the wings.

The team of Sir Ben Ainslie and Dylan Fletcher won the fifth race to take a 3-2 lead. With a burst of pride and nerves of steel the Prada Pirelli team of Checco Bruni and Jimmy Spithill brought the match back to perfect balance at 3-3 in the sixth racewhere the Italian crew dictated the law. «It’s an important draw. Well done guys!”, the hot comment from ‘Mastiff Spithill, who highlighted the “great merit” of the Azzurri for “having perfectly repeated the maneuver at the start” and having executed the others “very cleanly”, gaining the advantage over their opponents. «The boat sailed well», echoed Bruni. «We made a small mistake at the start in the first race. But overall it went very well, the conditions were ideal for racing. We must continue like this and try to crush them,” he added.

The first match began with the overlap at the start favorable to Sir Ainslie’s boat which went downwind and separated from Luna Rossa but then a brief fall from the foil proved fatal. At the first gate, the gap was 5 seconds. On the downwind leg – the first of the 8 legs in total of the regatta – the Italians managed to recover and move into Britannia’s wake.

At gate 2 Prada Pirelli was still 6 seconds behind; on the second leg upwind Ineos pulled ahead again. At the third gate Luna Rossa was still aiming to overtake, but the English were able to manage their advantage well, which had increased to 11 seconds halfway through the race. And the Prada team’s jibes on the third stern leg were to no avail, imitated by Ineos, who managed to maintain control ahead of the Azzurri. An error by Ineos on field seven reduced the gap to 70 meters and raised hopes. But not even the fast beat of skipper Max Sirena’s boys managed to tackle Britannia, who managed to cross the finish line 12 seconds behind Luna Rossa. Without losing heart, Prada Pirelli’s Azzurri prepared for the pre-start for the second match race, determined to repeat the strategy but this time without making any mistakes.

After an almost equal start, Luna Rossa managed to be faster, tack into first position with a perfect maneuver and close the first leg with a 4 second advantage. Both sailing cars passed the mark on the right side, but the Italians managed to extend and conquer a hundred meters on the leeward side, nibbling away another couple of seconds. Then the masterful upwind leg, with the duel of tacks which demonstrated absolute dominance over the team of Sir Ainslie and his companions, 200 meters behind. At halfway through the race, Luna Rossa’s advantage was 13 seconds, which became 17 on the fifth leg, with the AC75 flying at over 51 knots. At the seventh gate, the advantage over Britannia’s rivals was 400 meters and the Prada Pirelli team headed for the finish line with a 17 second gap and 3-3 redemption in their pocket. We start again tomorrow for the seventh and eighth regatta of the very close competition which, given the level of competitiveness, could end up in a play-off.