America’s Cup, Team New Zealand is devastating: it’s already 2-0 over Britannia

The 37th America’s Cup began in Barcelona, and Team New Zealand was immediately keen to show its full strength. In fact, the opening day gives us a 2-0 win in favor of the Kiwis that sounds like a real alarm for Ineos Britannia and Ben Ainslie. The Kiwis return to the water after the round robins, and they appear literally reborn in boat performance. If until a few weeks ago they seemed to have a few small weaknesses, in this start of the America’s Cup finals they have presented perfection by showing a markedly improved boat. Tahioro’s upwind sailing in particular is devastating and hurts the British badly: the Kiwis in coming upwind seem markedly more agile, as they demonstrate for example at the first stern gate of the second race, where they make two very close gybes and then turn the buoy without any problems by restarting upwind at acceleration despite just 7 knots of wind and reduced speed maneuvers.The British are defending themselves thanks to their speed downwind, where they seem to be very competitive but today it did not seem to be enough to be able to contain the New Zealanders, who appeared to be the best version of themselves.

America’s Cup already addressed? Too early to draw conclusions, certainly the verdict of the first day tells us that the means do not seem as close in performance as Luna Rossa and Britannia had been in the Louis Vuitton Cup final. No major mistakes are being made by Ben Ainslie and Dylan Fletcher, apart from perhaps an early start that was not set very well, and the feeling is that there will be a lot of work to be done in Britannia tonight to try as early as tomorrow to change course. We talk about it today at 6:30 p.m. on Processo alla Coppa, live on YouTube and Facebook, Mauro Giuffrè and Luca Sordelli’s guests will be Medea Falcioni (iQfoil junior world champion), Luca Bassani (Wally Yachts founder), with designer Giovanni Ceccarelli, with Francesco Bertone (DryLaps Team, Waszp 2022 European Champion), Daniele Cassinari (North Sails Italia President) and Ida Castiglioni from Barcelona.