Boy, did Oracle nail the start in R4 yesterday or what?
Oracle is faster in breeze as long as they don't tack any more than necessary. I think they had their VMG angles a little screwy in the first couple of races but it may have been the more moderate breeze that exposed some weakness in boat speed. It still blows my mind that these guys are hung over from mono-hull race tactics after all of this time - I'm watching Oracle in R3 wondering what they were doing by initiating that tacking duel when they had the advantage as tacking only introduces more risk (unless you are certain that you are not going to hang onto your lead and the risk is warranted). In the first race, race #3, yesterday, Oracle seemed desperate upwind and initiated the tacking duel that did them in quickly. As some of you noted here, they're also struggling to keep the bow out of the water when tacking...which is a bit strange. It will be interesting to see if they can put up a similar fight in more moderate breeze.
To be fair to oracle.. In r3 if they had just pegged ETNZ on starboard outside that five boat length boundary they would have sealed it I think. ETNZ would have had to short tack in very short order along the very puffy water in front of where I was sitting in the grandstands. It really was a matter of a few meters...
"This time, Kostecki told Spithill to sail a more strategic race as if there were 20 boats on the course. OTUSA wanted to avoid the close quarters battle that did them in the previous race." Source: Jobson's notes
