Life, they say, all comes down to a few precious moments, and today on what’s looking like being choppy waters off Barcelona, the first day of the UniCredit Youth America’s Cup gets underway with the Group A teams, representing the America’s Cup syndicates, hoping to get four fleet races completed.
Wind limits and course rules for the UniCredit Youth America’s Cup are slightly different from what we see in the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup with the most notable being a 7.5 knot lower limit to start racing. The upper limit is also reduced to 17 knots, very much with safety in mind in the AC40 fleet. Races have a reduced time-limit of 30 minutes and the time-limit to the first mark is also reduced to 10 minutes.
The target-time of each individual race in the fleet-races is 20 minutes and note that the boats must be in the starting-box area at 2 minutes and 10 seconds or face a penalty. Penalties are set at 75 metres. The start-line itself will be increased to 0.25 nautical miles for the fleet races and the legs of the course will be approximately 1 nautical mile, depending on conditions.
Today in Barcelona the wind is expected to start in the east but slowly move around to the ‘Xaloc’ south-easterly direction which produced some very even courses when the AC75’s raced in those conditions in the Louis Vuitton Round Robins, with even pressure and shifts across the course.
The conditions could mean, for the AC40s, especially in fleet racing, a lot of potential passing lanes and the UniCredit Youth sailors will have to keep their eyes out of the boats looking for the pressure and shifts. Wind speeds are expected to build with the official forecast suggest 6-10 knots, however a ‘Xaloc’ wind here in Barcelona can surprise to the upside.
The big factor today could well be the swell size and with an easterly swell direction, whipped up by the mistral further up the Mediterranean, and forecasters are saying that it could top out at 0.9 – 1.0 metre. In an AC40 that’s considerable and the teams will be looking to keep their rudders in the water, particularly when flying high downwind and along the troughs. It could be very tough for the flight controllers and trimmers today, and with four fleet races on the schedule, the UniCredit Youth America’s Cup is wide open
