Before seeing it myself, I would have said that the best view of the races had to be on the live stream. Seeing more from the shore than from a helicopter seemed unlikely to me. Sure I had been frustrated with the livestream when a boat would round a mark deep in the fleet and the next mark close to the front and never have seen how they did it. But it would not be fair to blame the production team, there is so much action in a typical 12 minute race that it will take years for the team to develop the skills necessary to show it all.
Here are a few examples from just the first race today where I saw things from the shore that did not come through on the broadcast:
Race 1: France / Canada port starboard on the first weather leg.
After Ben had pushed Quentin back at the start, and then re-attached himself to the front group seemingly leaving France well behind, by some miracle, Quentin was still not completely out of it.
In fact, halfway up leg 3, GBR crossed FRA by less than a boat-length. It was anybody’s to win.
Four seconds after crossing the French, the British, still on starboard tack, caused the Canadians to duck behind them. So, the Canadians, who had been ahead of the French, were pushed back to even with the French. The Brits essentially took a boat that could have been between themselves and the French and pushed them back.
Then the camera cuts away, but France decided to tack even though I don’t think they were at the boundary. Their early tack plus the fact that moments earlier Canada had been a good bit ahead of France, caught Canada by surprise and both boats had to scramble to avoid catastrophe.
The French avoided capsizing by some miracle, but race 1 was slipping away from them.
Race 1: USA / Denmark port starboard also on the first weather leg.
It is true that both boats are out of the running for the final, but nevertheless, it was another situation where it was clear that the drivers were caught unaware of the boats around them. Jimmy’s Team USA had bounced off left boundary right in front of the stands and may have overstood a bit. Still a few hundred yards from the weather gate, those of us on shore could easily see a port / starboard incident developing.
Neither boat saw the other until the very last minute and just like FRA and CAN, radical avoiding action ensued.
In this case the whole thing was caught on camera, but the commentators were occupied elsewhere and were just as unaware as Jimmy and Seb. More radical avoiding action.
Race 1: GBR passes SUI on the last weather leg.
This pass turned out to be on camera, but escaped the attention of the commentators. On the last upwind leg, not long after passing just ahead of France and Canada as mentioned above, Ben and his British team were barely to leeward of the Swiss as they approached the left boundary.
On camera it looked like the Swiss had them pinned, but in fact there was enough separation for GBR to tack before SUI was ready and got away from their cover.
Then in a miracle of boat speed, GBR just sailed away from the Swiss, so much so that they were able to tack and cross, and take second place.
So Race 1 ended with GBR in 2nd and FRA in 6th.
I won’t drag you through every little bit of the next two races, but they are worth watching on YouTube.
Even with Ben’s match racing before the start, both boats got a good start in race 2, but then GBR just sped away. They sailed a flawless race and finished first, FRA finished 8th. Yow!
In the final race of today.
Race three was the best demonstration of old style match racing pre-start circles I have ever seen in foiling catamarans. It shows clearly how far the boathandling has come since these boats were used in the 2017 Americas Cup. Ben pushed Quentin to the back, and then sailed GBR back to 2nd.
So after day 1 the results look like this:
AND, Sergio Perez is in pole position for Miami F1 with Max in 9th.
AND, Mage, ridden by Javier Castelano won the Kentucky Derby - paying 15:1. It was Javier’s 16th try at the Derby and first win.
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