Of Wind and Organization

Are you confused? We certainly are. We were expecting a double-header of the end of Flight 4 races + the Flight 5 races. Instead, organizers are so itchy at getting the races completed that the tried to run Flight 5 and 6 today. Unfortunately dyeing winds made racing akin to a trip to Las Vegas and only 2 races were copleted in Flight 5

The same reasoning applies tomorrow. A full Schedule of Flight 6 and 7 are on the board. The postponed races will be scheduled in somehow later.

De Angelis was right in stating that the formula for elimination was opaque. LV Cup organizers (and the Prada team is a big culprit being the Challenger of Record) made some debatable choices compounded by a lack of factoring in weather instability in Hauraki Bay.

The other organisational drawback is certainly the decision to cover only two races of each syndicate per Round Robin on TV. Virtual Spectator is nice, but there are some things one cannot be shown on the computer screen. The mandatory audio feed from the boats is also added value that is being wasted. And the restricted television coverage is certainly not designed to please the sponsors. Consider countries from smaller markets (Australia & New Zealand): their only chance to get well-funded syndicates that have to clamour through the LV Cup is to find sponsorship that targets markets abroad.

We had to get those observations regarding organisation off our chests.

The racing today? Boring. Whomever won the start had to pick the right side of the course to catch the wind shift & would win the race. ML should've beat LR but a gennaker problem during a gybe 500m from the finish line took that precious point away. Alinghi won against Wight Lightning. Naturally.