Are you coming to Cascais? If you are, let me know and we’ll meet for a drink. Do you need a good price on a hotel? If you can’t be in Cascais, you’ll be able to follow my reports with the insider view of all the action. And not just the racing… The breeze builds in the afternoon. The teams are allowed to start testing on Tuesday 2 August, so there will be action. I can be entertained just watching the shore crews crane the boats into the water! I’ll try to shoot some videos for you. Any other requests?
The racing schedule and the names of the various components of this event are complicated. That’s why you need a good guide, like me, to help you figure this stuff out…
First, here’s the port and the race area:
Cascais
Race Schedule: The news article on the America’s Cup website describes the schedule a bit differently from the the Regatta Notice 2011-27, published by ACRM. After studying both, here’s my best guess at the schedule:
Racing kicks off Saturday 6 August with three or four fleet races of about 20 minutes each, followed by “time trials” over a 500 meter straightaway. No racing on Monday or Tuesday, but you can bet that the teams will be on the water testing – they need all the time they can get in these boats to learn how to handle them!
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday each start with three fleet races. The top six teams then pair off for match racing – each match is best of three races. At the end of racing Friday, the top two teams go straight through to the semi-finals on Saturday. The next four teams sail in the quarter-finals on Saturday to determine the other semi-finalists. Saturday 13 August, we see the quarter finals, semi-finals and finals of the “Cascais AC Match Race Championship.”
Fleet racing on Sunday 14 August: “The AC World Series Championship Cascais”
All teams participate in one fleet race. The winner will be crowned the fleet racing champion – in other words none of the earlier fleet race results count – a bit like in the “medal race” in Olympic sailing.
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