The spying game

Le Defi Areva's Sebastien Destremau describes the amusing scenario of Alinghi lining up against Oracle

Yesterday could have just been another day at the office with the practice races organised by the CORM. At 9am, the whole fleet of AC boats followed by an army of motor boats, tenders, weather boats etc ... left the "Viaduct Basin" like any other day.

Except that today, a special match was scheduled on the Hauraki Gulf: The Titan's match with two heavy weights of the soon to start Louis Vuitton Cup:
On the right side and yellow corner, Alinghi and its bunch of mercenaries driven by the Lord of the America's Cup Russell Coutts and on the left and blue corner, Oracle, the awsome American team backed by billionaire Larry Ellison.

These two challengers have the biggest compounds, the flashiest cars, the biggest fleet of support and weather boats, dozens of different sails, the most and biggest of everything's s in comparison to the other syndicates.... They firmly believe that they are the strongest teams in the field and are already forecasting on meeting each other in the LVC finals early January. They have yet to be there and only future will tell.

Meanwhile approaching their race course, two things were quite surprising. Firstly, they were the only pair using the blue circle when six others syndicates were sharing a crowded yellow one. You can just wonder why or how they achieve this privilege? However what was really amazing was the incredible number of powerboats from "rival" syndicates. Team New Zealand, Prada, Le Defi Areva, One World, etc ....all of them were there to have a "look and see".

As soon as the race started, ten powerboats started to chase the two competitors. It has to be mentioned that it is completely against the rules as spectator boats must stay outside the race course however the 'marshall' couldn't do anything to stop this army of power boats in these non-official races.

The spying game is the same for everybody. Firstly, you have to be perfectly behind one boat and take dozens of pictures. The rule says that you cannot be closer than 200 yards from any competitor. Imagine 10 powerboats following each other at ten knots of speed just flirting with the 200 yard limit. It looked like a traffic jam at peak hour on the freeway. What you try to assess is, the way they trim the sails, the balance and heel of their boat, sail shape comparison, speed differences, etc... The whole fleet then rushed to the top mark and checked with a stop watch how long it took to hoist the spinnaker or the jib dropping technique. Every spy boat looked at each other saying a discreet hello with faces like ''hum I've spotted something interesting". Quite amusing indeed.

What is even more interesting is that after a day like this each team will have a meeting with the analysis committee back at the compound. These people will analyse the pictures and discuss for hours the important points learned during the spying session. Each syndicate will probably have exactly the same pictures and will make the same analysis however we'll have to keep them for ourselves. It is Top Secret.

But tell me something. Is this situation odd or even a bit ridiculous? Wouldn't it be wiser and cheaper for each team to provide the others with a set of pictures and some info about their own boat??? Probably yes however without spying, the America's Cup World would not have the same flavour!!