Oracle and the America’s Cup

As Gary Jobson sees it, the Kiwis are like “a well-choreographed Broadway show” and the Oracle sailors are “still auditioning.” He also thinks the Emirates Team New Zealand crew might have an edge in motivation. Unlike the Oracle guys, they’re sailing for their country. As Nathan Outteridge sees it, Oracle has a slight speed edge upwind. The key will be not just getting to the first mark first but leading at the bottom, or second mark. “That’s probably going to determine the race,” he said.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jaDBCJ27R8&feature=player_embedded#t=69

Jobson and Outteridge are expert commentators on the TV coverage of the America’s Cup regatta, the experienced Jobson handling the in-race analysis and the newcomer Outteridge providing postrace commentary.

Both say it’s difficult to predict the outcome of the finals – a welcome case after the tedious predictability of the first seven weeks of the regatta. “I’ve been saying for months the winning team is going to lose three races,” Jobson said.
That is, something weird will happen to cause a team to lose. It will jump the start or have a mechanical problem.

Both men dearly hope the finals are dramatic and close because they have a vested interest. Beyond that, they share an obvious passion for their sport and an ability to explain its complicated aspects in ways a landlubber can understand.

Jobson, 63, won the America’s Cup as a tactician with Ted Turner in 1977. Jobson’s handiwork is all over the sport. A former president of US Sailing, he’s a lecturer, author and active cruising sailor as well as a broadcaster.

Outteridge, a 27-year-old Australian, hasn’t been on TV long, but he has a knack for it. Unfortunately for TV viewers, he has probably two more decades to go as a competitor before he might make a career switch. He won a gold medal at the London Olympics and was the helmsman for Artemis Racing in the Louis Vuitton Cup semifinals two weeks ago.

“The New Zealand team looks to me like a well-choreographed Broadway show with all the actors in exactly the right position at the right time, making all the right movements,” Jobson said. He has watched Jimmy Spithill’s Oracle Team USA boat 14 times during in-house races against Ben Ainslie. In contrast with the Kiwis’ Broadway-worthy numbers, the Oracle people are “still auditioning,” he said. “There’s a lot of unevenness in their crews, and the boat doesn’t seem quite as steady.”

During the 12-day layoff before the America’s Cup finals begin Sept. 7, he said, the engineers and designers for both teams are going to want more time with the boats in the shed, and the sailors are going to want more time in the water. Jobson predicts that the team spending more time in the water will win the Cup. “When you’re in the shed,” he said, “sometimes you take two steps forward and one step back.” From his observations of Oracle during the defender-access periods, Outteridge said its boat speed is really close to Team New Zealand’s both upwind and downwind. “The question is how fast each team is developing the foiling upwind and doing the foiling tacks,” he said.

He thinks Oracle should have a slight speed advantage upwind because of a superior aerodynamic package. In terms of maneuvers, the Kiwis are extremely polished, but Oracle should be, too. Unlike the previous races in the regatta, there could be passes on the downwind second leg, Outteridge said. “Whoever leads around Mark 1 can do the bear-away (turn) whenever they want to, and they have a better chance of leading around the bottom mark,” he said. New Zealand skipper Dean Barker has had his way in the prestart. That might not be the case in the finals, Outteridge said.

Barker has a great sense of what his boat can do, and he can accelerate in the prestart zone when necessary, Outteridge said, thanks to what sailors call a mental clock of “time and distance.”
Spithill and Ainslie have probably had more “combat starts,” the equivalent of basketball players jockeying for position for a rebound.

“They’re not being too concerned with making errors,” Outteridge said. “I’d expect Jimmy to be quite aggressive in the starts and really try to push it to Dean.”

In strong winds, the Kiwis would have the edge, he thinks, because their boat is “a little safer” and easier to sail than Oracle’s. “They can get away with making errors, and the buoyancy of their boat helps them through,” he said. “We saw them nosedive the other day, and the boat didn’t look like there were any issues at all.”

Oracle’s crew might not be as capable of righting the boat in the same situation, he said. “Oracle’s boat, to me, seems like a faster boat – with a better chance to get top speeds, but it’s a harder boat to sail. Team New Zealand’s boat seems to be a tiny bit slower, but they can push it to 100 percent.”
In milder winds, the edge would shift to Oracle, Outteridge said. “They designed their boats for September, when the winds are typically lighter.”

There’s another factor at hand that has nothing to do with boat speed, crew work or engineering. It’s who wants it more. Jobson, for one, thinks the Kiwis do. “There’s a big difference when you’re sailing for your country and just about every member of your crew is from your country,” he said. “It’s a mission.”

He said it’s different for Oracle, which has sailors from all over the world. “They’re all probably getting good paychecks, but they’re sailing for themselves as a job, versus a group that’s sailing for their country.” Jobson poses the question this way: “Can the mission of sailing for your country overcome a gigantic machine?”