Six fleet races into the Louis Vuitton 38th America's Cup Preliminary Regatta off Sardinia, the Gulf of Angels has already separated the field into those who belong and those who are still finding out. Eight equalised AC40s have been racing through conditions that ranged from punishing 21-knot chop to featherlight drifters, and the Mediterranean has given no quarter. For Emirates Team New Zealand, the week has produced two stories running in parallel, each compelling, and each heading in a different direction.
The defending syndicate arrived at this preliminary event carrying a structural novelty that has no precedent in Cup history: a senior "Principal" crew racing alongside a "Women & Youth" development entry, both flying the same flag. Six races in, the principal boat has shown flashes of outright speed while suffering catastrophic late-race collapses that are difficult to explain and harder to accept, while the development crew has been quietly assembling a result that few anticipated.
The standings after fleet Race 6
| First four positions after Fleet Race 6 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Pos. | Team | Points |
| 1st | Luna Rossa – Women & Youth | 55 |
| 2nd | Emirates Team New Zealand (Principal) | 47 |
| 3rd | Luna Rossa (Principal) | 44 |
| 4th | Emirates Team New Zealand (Women & Youth) | 43 |
Nathan Outteridge and Seb Menzies share the helming duties on the senior Kiwi entry, and when the package has functioned as it should, they have looked every bit like a crew capable of taking this regatta. The problem is that the boat has not always cooperated at the moments that matter most.
"It was a tough battle. It was really tricky out there. There were a few gusts and lulls, and more up and down compared to yesterday. Luna Rossa kept us on our toes, and it was nice to keep chipping away. On that last downwind of the first race, we had a couple of close exchanges. It was good to get them on the finish line. We are aware that we have to keep the focus in every race because we saw what happened yesterday." Nathan Outteridge / Skipper & Helm, Emirates Team New Zealand — after Race 4
Race 2 offered the clearest window into what this crew is capable of. Having been sent backwards by a penalty in Race 1, they came back with a win that required them to hold off both the senior and junior Luna Rossa boats in a tense three-way match race situation on the final approach. The composure they showed under that pressure was genuine. Race 4 brought a second victory, built through tactical recovery sailing as the fleet bore down in the closing stages and the Kiwis held them off.
What followed those highs was harder to watch. In Race 3, the principal boat held a comfortable lead approaching the finish when a late gybe in heavy chop triggered a porpoise sequence, the bow plunging into the water with the line in sight. Race 6 was worse in a different way: running in front again, the boat was struck by a severe autopilot malfunction that threw the hull violently skyward before pitching the bow into the sea, sending the crew from first to last in a matter of seconds. Two separate races, two leads, two disasters on the final leg.
"The racing is epic. Nothing that I have done beats AC40 racing and it is so tight and so close. We didn't expect the breeze to die like this. We got to race on all three jib sizes, which was pretty fun. A few good races and we just got a bit stuck in a couple of moments where we didn't get in the right spot, but it was a good day all in all. I think we are pretty happy. A couple of good battles with the Italian teams. It seems to be a bit of a theme. We are having a lot of battles with those guys. It's good to go through the processes with the four of us and go through the communication and experience racing, which is really cool." Seb Menzies / Helm, Emirates Team New Zealand
The principal entry sits second on the leaderboard despite those implosions, which says something real about the underlying pace of the boat. The pattern is too consistent to wave away, though. With match racing still to come, the vulnerabilities exposed under high-load downwind conditions represent a problem that demands answers.
Where the senior crew have been riding that emotional arc, the development squad has been building something far steadier. Erica Dawson, an Olympic foil sailor, takes the starboard helm, with Moth specialist Jake Pye alongside her on port. Josh Armit and Serena Woodall manage the trimming, and as a group they have carried themselves with a maturity that has caught a number of observers off guard.
"The second start had a pretty close call with Alinghi, we were coming off the boat end on starboard, and they were trying to do a port start. It got a bit too close for comfort there and that kind of set us off on the back foot for that start, which is a bit of a shame. But we managed to get ourselves back a few places, which was good. We haven't done that many hours in the boat, so every day is new. We see the conditions and adjust to that and try to learn as much as we can and take forward through the rest of the campaign. The racing has been awesome and it's really cool to have a big variety of races." Serena Woodall / Trimmer, Emirates Team New Zealand Women's & Youth Team
On the opening day, when conditions were heavy enough to cause real problems for a crew still finding its feet at this level, the youth entry avoided trouble entirely and posted consecutive fourth-place finishes. Controlled, clean, and unrattled by the established Cup programmes around them. Race 4 became their best result of the week: reading the light-air shifts well and executing precise manoeuvres, they crossed in third, ahead of the Luna Rossa youth squad that has otherwise set the standard throughout the regatta.
Race 5 brought the sharpest lesson so far. La Roche-Posay, the French team, executed a move that placed the Kiwi youth boat in dirty air and pushed them backwards through the fleet, a pointed reminder that fleet racing penalises a lost lane without hesitation. Despite that setback, the crew sits fourth overall, just four points adrift of the senior Luna Rossa entry, a position almost nobody would have predicted at the start of the week. Dawson described the mood aboard simply: "Our learning curve is just so steep at the moment... every hour on the water, we are learning so much."
Running two boats has clearly done what the syndicate hoped it would. Data sharing between the principal crew and the development entry has kept both competitive, and racing against each other has made both sharper. The standard against which both must measure themselves, however, remains Marco Gradoni's Luna Rossa Women & Youth team, who sit at the top of the standings. They have made the principal Kiwi crew pay for every error handed to them, and that clinical efficiency is the most instructive signal of what Emirates Team New Zealand still needs to resolve.
Two fleet races remain before the top two finishers advance to a winner-takes-all match race final. The principal crew must find the consistency on the final leg that has so far cost them dearly, while the Women & Youth squad carry a genuine opportunity to secure a result that would mean something well beyond this preliminary regatta.
