EERIE SILENCE & FIGHTING TALK
The bars, cafés and restaurants that line Auckland’s Wynyard Quarter and the Viaduct Basin may be busy as people continue to stream through the America’s Cup Village, but there’s an eerie silence on the waterfront.
One team is already packing, the familiar regular warning beeps from the fork lift trucks and cranes that run each day as American Magic continue to break down their base provide a continuous reminder as to what’s at stake from here on in. Those close to the scene are also sensing the eerie audio backdrop but can also feel the tension rising as the days count down to the final showdown in the Prada Cup.
Just one week away, on 13 Feb Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli will face INEOS TEAM UK in the first to seven wins series. From there the official challenger for the 36th America’s Cup will be declared. And while there may not be any racing at present, the pressure is clearly building.
Luna Rossa’s decisive 4:0 victory over American Magic in the semi-final brought an abrupt end to the racing. For the Americans, defeat spelt the end of their campaign, an abrupt blow to three years of meticulous planning and development.
For the Italians, defeating their opponents with such ruthless efficiency has ensured that they have the maximum amount of time to focus on the next stage. And as they look forwards, balancing the demands of developing and refining their boat, along with training and analysing their opponent’s potential strategy requires careful planning, but most of all it takes time.
While all the teams know that time is the most valuable commodity in any Cup campaign, INEOS TEAM UK were clear right from the start of the PRADA Cup that their goal was to do all they could to maximise this. In this respect, winning the Round Robin phase was crucial.
“We were really focussed on trying to get out that direct route to the PRADA Cup final,” said Skipper Sir Ben Ainslie. “Whilst American Magic had capsized, we had no idea quite how they would come back from that. And before the capsize they were dangerously quick at times. So, we wanted to make sure we guaranteed that spot in the final.
“Secondly, throughout this whole campaign we've been playing catch up and so having the opportunity to actually get a bit of that time back, albeit only a week, we felt was important in terms of being able to make the changes we wanted to do the boat. Having that extra week or so enabled us to make some changes that we wouldn't have been able to implement had we not had the extra period of time.”
Their victory in the Round Robin stage had certainly bought them more time than Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, the British team now had 20 days in hand.
But was this too much time? Would they lose out on racing for real? While Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli had to fight their way to the final, they would at least be facing a live opponent, a competitor that may throw moves at them that they hadn’t considered.
“We will have a three week window where we are not getting intense racing,” continued Ainslie, “So we will race around the race course on our own and try and simulate practice using chase boats or in the simulator, so you've got to trade off versus the developing gains that you think you might be able to make.”
But America’s Cup campaigns are also about mind games where turning any situation to your advantage is as important as using the opportunity to put pressure on your opponent. Both teams were bound to sound positive about their predicaments.
Here, Luna Rossa’s Jimmy Spithill is one of the best in the business, combining what the team sees as an opportunity and making sure that their opponents know how they feel.
“Development is the name of the game in the America's Cup,” he said at the end of the semi-final. “It is all about boat speed and getting as much of it as you can. We've got a lot of work to do before the Prada Cup final and the team knows that.
“The British have also been out there working hard but we've been fortunate enough to be racing. I believe we needed that series. I actually think it was an advantage going through this series because we're a lot stronger for it.
“I believe we've had the best preparation leading into this PRADA Cup final,” he continued. “The pressure we had to face internally, the entire team after that series going into this sort of sudden death, that that's about as good a preparation as you can get.”
“We know there's a lot more there on the table and we'll be doing everything we can to come out and get some payback on the Poms.”
But for all the fighting talk, plans and preparations, there is another feature of this PRADA Cup that stands out, uncertainty.
Even among some of the most seasoned professionals, be they competitors or commentators, no one is prepared to speak with any certainty as to who has the upper hand going into the PRADA Cup final. And the reasons seem clear.
Be it the staggering rate of development and performance improvement among the teams that has already taken place following breaks in the racing, or the hard evidence provided in the breathtakingly close duel between the Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli and INEOS TEAM UK in the final match of the last round robin, predicting the future along the road to the 36th America’s Cup is risky. But what we do seem to know is that the final looks set to be a duel at a level that few dared to hope for.
The eerie silence and the war of words is only the beginning. As the clock counts down the pressure will simply rise.