Louis Vuitton Cup Final notebook / America’s Cup

Port or starboard? The jury’s still outWith the Louis Vuitton Cup Final beginning tomorrow, each team was permitted to choose its desired side of entry for Race 1 and Race 2. As stipulated by the Sailing Instructions, Luna Rossa Challenge won the right to pick for Race 1 because of its semifinal victory, and it chose port entry. Emirates Team New Zealand had the choice for Race 2 and it, too, chose port entry.

Both teams chose port tack. So what’s happened to the days of starboard tack ruling the pre-start? For one, the pre-start sequence has been reduced to 2 minutes from 5 minutes, greatly reducing the amount of time for maneuvers. Secondly, the port-tack yacht gets to enter the start box 10 seconds earlier than the starboard yacht.

That said, we’ll let Luna Rossa Challenge helmsman Chris Draper and Emirates Team New Zealand skipper Dean Barker add their takes on the pre-start.

“We wanted to make the pre-start safer, and we realized that was one of the more dangerous parts of the race,” said Draper. “The decision was made between the competitors and rules advisers to make the entry for the port boat at 2:10. In some ways it’s given the port boat quite a lot of advantage, and if we have to choose our entry we’d choose port. You’ve got a lot of maneuvering as the starboard boat, especially to get around the back and push the port entry boat. It’s a bit harder for starboard entry boat because of the 2:10, but I’m sure that we’ll make the best of it.  More; ”Louis Vuitton Cup Final notebook / America’s Cup