Yeah, the first third of the downwind leg was painful to watch as A carved up hard to power up, then drive down a bit, carry then splash, then repeat. Combo of things leading to that, IMO, but it sure didn't look good for the helm...
Jimmy said they had a big puff which they where able to carry a long way down the course. I just watched a replay of Eurosport and you can see that BMWO was also making quite a lot of course changes, at one point I see them bearing away something like 45 degrees. Shifty conditions are never easy to sail in and I wonder what happened if you would sail 10 races, what the outcome would be.
I remember seeing that. They took a big puff and drove down at the same moment that A was flat and heading up for heat (at least that's the way it looked from the camera angle). I wouldn't expect either to sail a straight course downwind, that wasn't the point. But BOR's heating and diving actually kept the boat rolling - either the boat has an easier groove or Spithill is better at keeping it there. A5 would go flat in the water before heating up in the early part of the DW leg. They got in a better grove in the lower part of the downwind leg, consistently keeping the boat flying.
10 race scenario - my guess is that after a couple of races the A5 crew would be more in tune with the boat and things would even out a bit, with the overall advantage over 10 still to BOR.
