Luna Rossa Women and Youth complete a dominant Day 2 with a 3rd race win

Margherita Porro and Marco Gradoni won Race 6 in the hardest conditions yet of the regatta—their third race win from six starts. Seven knots of breeze, a minimum wind limit that was touched more than once, and a course that rewarded those who read the side right and punished those who didn’t.

The breeze had been dropping all afternoon. By Race 6 it was sitting around seven to eight knots, teams switching to their largest jibs to find maximum power, and the race committee lengthening and rotating the course multiple times to chase what wind remained. Staying on the foils through manoeuvres was not guaranteed. Twenty-four knots of boat speed is the threshold for a safe tack or gybe. Several boats spent much of the race below it.

A perfect start

Luna Rossa Women and Youth timed the pin end perfectly, the crew threading their way through the support boats and hitting the line with pace while most of the fleet reached in from the right.

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ETNZ’s principal boat co-helmed by Nathan Outteridge and Seb Menzies had a clean start and pushed out to the right, finding a pressure lift that carried them to the top gate in front.

A game of tactics

ETNZ held the front through the opening legs, protecting the right side of the course where the pressure was consistently better. Luna Rossa Women and Youth had lost ground out of a tricky tack in the opening upwind but rebuilt steadily, Gradoni calling the pressure shifts from the leeward side while Porro worked the boat upwind. By the second upwind they had drawn level, forcing ETNZ left into a lighter patch, and from that point the rest of the fleet fell away as the two boats locked onto each other.

Luna Rossa’s principal boat co-helmed by Peter Burling and Ruggero Tita was in their own private race in third, consistent and composed but unable to close the gap on the two leaders. The ETNZ Women and Youth team recovered from their bad start and moved into fourth.

An ill-timed jibe

ETNZ led onto the last downwind. The margin was small, and the breeze was still shifting. A jibe near the boundary bled speed at the wrong moment, the Kiwis coming high out of the turn and handing Luna Rossa Women and Youth the right side of the course. Luna Rossa Women and Youth found the pressure and didn’t give it back. ETNZ’s recovery jibe was too late. Luna Rossa Women and Youth crossed the line first, with ETNZ 11 seconds behind.

Athena Pathway nearly didn’t finish sixth. Coming off the foils on the final jibe, the boat drifted across the line rather than sailing across it. Tudor Team Alinghi, still recovering from the Race 5 capsize, finished seventh.

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After Fleet Race 6 the top four teams remain in the same position, with Luna Rossa Women and Youth team in the front, followed by the principal ETNZ and the principal Luna Rossa, with ETNZ Women and Youth team taking fourth. One point separates ETNZ Women and Youth, who did not fire so well today, particularly after the knockback in Race 5 from fifth-placed La Roche-Posay.

Consistency is key. Luna Rossa Women and Youth have only once been out of the top two finishers in a race. ETNZ has fluctuated a little more; the loss of foils in Race 3 significantly impacted their points. There are two more races left before the final, and if the pattern that we are now beginning to see continues, the final will consist of Luna Rossa Women and Youth and ETNZ.

One of our burning questions is, will we see GB1 out on the water tomorrow, if nothing else to gain race experience?