Aesthetics Overboard

The last race of flight 5 between LR and Mascalzone Latino was postponed. Again. This time because of strong winds. What was to be a three lap race will now be run tomorrow over two laps.

The real interesting news item is that Luna Rossa has their new bow - joining the ranks of all the other teams that adopted the knucklebow made famous by Balck Magic 3 years ago... Doug Peterson may be correct in judging it unelegant - a crime of lèse-majesté in the Prada circles, but performance and winning will have the upper hand . The team had announced that it would not be ready until the quarter-finals. But obviously they were working double-shifting overtime in the Cookson shipyards to get ITA-74 ready for the second round robin (Yes, ITA74 - the boat that competed in Round Robin 1 - the changes were operated in 5 days! ITA-80 is undergoing further evolutions in view of the quarter finals).

And obviously, the Prada team played mind games with the press leading us to believe that the team's competitiveness would not be seen until the month of november.

Whatever the case, the tactical move is a superior one. A lot will be learned from these first few races (delaying the ML match was also playing into LR's hands - having an extra race with the new boat). Even if it is uncompetitive, there will be a chance between the round robins and the quarter-final (+ repêchage) to work some more. Skipping the second round robin would have been much more risker for the 1/4 final repêchage.

Keep an eye out on windward and leeward times, in particular when the boats do classic match racing. Those statistics will tell much in terms of LR's chances to advance.