Jeddah was a magical venue today delivering outstanding, pitch-perfect conditions for Raceday Two of the America’s Cup Preliminary Regatta Jeddah, presented by NEOM. Bang on cue, just ahead of racing and as accurately forecasted, a 12-16 knot north westerly filtered across the racecourse that saw the AC40s easily flying and rocketing around just metres off the foreshore of this remarkable, world-class venue for international sailing.
From early morning, the glittering Red Sea was alive with boats of all hues as the Jeddah Yacht Club Academy took to the water in a fleet of RS Zest and Laser dinghies, whilst some interesting racing happened in the Far East 28R sportsboats, decked out in the national flags of all the competing America’s Cup teams – for the record, the USA flagged boat was winning. The next generation of Saudi sailors have been encouraged this week with visits from representatives of all the teams who have taken time out of their racing schedule to inspire the young girls and boys of the Kingdom in this visionary Academy that offers opportunity for all.
The first race didn’t disappoint with the young Italian team stealing into a lead after some very close action and streaking ahead to win by a margin. Emirates Team New Zealand kept them honest to cross second and then put the hammer down in the second race (Race 5 of the series) to win a thrilling, close-fought, almost match-race to the finish. These two teams, the America’s Cup Match contenders from AC36 back in Auckland in 2021, were giving no quarter with the young Italian guns giving the vastly experienced Defenders of the America’s Cup a real run for their money.
One apiece between the Italians and the Kiwis, they appeared a class apart from the rest, and put everything on the line for Race 6 of the series, but a penalty at the start line for an infringement on Alinghi Red Bull Racing saw the Italians on the back-foot. Emirates Team New Zealand put on a masterclass of high stakes racing, dicing tack after tack and gybe after gybe at the front of the fleet over three laps of the 1.35 nautical mile course with NYYC American Magic and Alinghi Red Bull Racing.
Multiple lead changes occurred in a building sea-state with each boat taking the lead position at times but at the finish, it was Peter Burling and Nathan Outteridge who kept their helming cool, seized the lead on the final upwind leg and finished the day with two wins and secured a guaranteed spot in the Grand Final. Mathematically it’s a three-way battle now between Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, Alinghi Red Bull Racing and INEOS Britannia to take the other place in the final with the Italian team in pole position to secure the spot. All to play for.
Speaking afterwards, Blair Tuke spoke about the intensity of the racing saying: “It was pretty fun, we’ve known that these boats can do that and have that bow-on-bow action, close dips here and there and coming down to the real fine margins of boatspeed and windshifts almost like a conventional keelboat fleet but much faster. So, it was really great to finally see what these boats could do today. Onboard at time there are times that you have to be really clinical on your communication and positioning of the boat and there’s other times where it turns into a bit more of an open course where you can discuss things a little bit more so just changing that tone as you go through is important.”