Explaining the unexplainable

James Boyd looks at the complex route to the Louis Vuitton final

Two round robins, top eight go through to the quarter finals, top four to the semis, top two to the finals – this might seem to be the most likely format for the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger series. But you’d be wrong.

The new system introduced for the 2002 Louis Vuitton Cup is complex but the result gives all but the slowest starter among the nine Challengers the opportunity to get into the finals. Besides after the millions of dollars and phenomenal effort necessary to put into an America’s Cup challenge, the teams understandably want to get their money’s worth and for spectators it will make for a more interesting competition.

So how does it work?

This time there are again round robins but two sets instead of three. In the first round robin every team gets to race all of the other eight teams, with one point going to the winner of each race. The second round robin is the same, again scoring one point for a win, zero for a lose (this time there is no difference in weighting between the round robins).

The points from the two round robins are totted up and the top eight go through to the quarter-finals, while the last team goes home.

Quarterfinals

For the quarterfinals the new system is different: the top eight are divided into two groups – the top four and the bottom four from the round robins.

Boat 1
Boat 2
Boat 3
Boat 4

Boat 5
Boat 6
Boat 7
Boat 8

The top scoring boats from the round robins in each group (ie: Boat 1 and Boat 5) get to nominate which one of the three other boats in their group they race in the quarterfinals. So the likely scenario is that Boat 1 will choose to race Boat 4, while Boat 5 will opt to take on Boat 8. This would leave Boat 2 to race Boat 3 and Boat 6 to race Boat 7. Each competition is a best of seven matches.

Then comes the interesting bit in the Quarterfinal repechage.

In this the loser of Boat 1 v Boat 4 (presumably Boat 4) races the winner of the Boat 5 v Boat 8 (presumably Boat 5). Meanwhile the loser of the Boat 2 v Boat 3 match gets to race the winner of the Boat 6 v Boat 7 match.

So the Quarterfinal races are:

Boat 1 v Boat 4
winner goes straight to Semis to race winner of boat 2 v boat 3
loser goes to race winner of Boat 5 v Boat 8 in Quarterfinal repechage

Boat 2 v Boat 3
winner goes straight to Semis to race winner of boat 1 v boat 4
loser goes to race winner of Boat 6 v Boat 7 in Quarterfinal repechage

Boat 5 v Boat 8
winner goes on to race loser of Boat 1 v Boat 4 in quarterfinal repechage
loser goes home

Boat 6 v Boat 7
winner goes on race loser of Boat 2 v Boat 3 in quarterfinal repechage
loser goes home.

Assuming that there is no change in form between the round robins and quarterfinals then this would see the Quarterfinal repechage being:

Boat 4 v Boat 5
Winner goes through to semis
Loser goes home

Boat 3 v Boat 6
Winner goes through to semis
Loser goes home

So this sees four boats go through to the Semifinals. If there is no change in form then the top ranked boats from the round robins end up making it through to the semis.

Semifinals

This works in much the same way as the quarter finals.

One race (call it race A) is between the quarterfinal winner of Boat 1 and Boat 4 and the quarterfinal winner of Boat 2 and Boat 3. The winner goes straight on to the final.

The other (race B) is between the winners of the two Quarterfinal repechage matches. The loser goes home.

Then the semifinal repechage takes place between the loser of race A and the winner of race B. The winner of this goes to line up against the winner of race A in the final.

While all of the matches up until the final comprise a best of seven, the finals are a best of nine races.

Confused? The easiest way to understand this is to download the .pdf file direct from the Louis Vuitton site.

The upshot of the new system is that it is still possible for the eighth placed boat from the round robins to get through to the finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup. In the Louis Vuitton series in the past there have been a number of ‘late’ developers and this new system will work particularly well for them.

It also means that teams doing well in the round robins and the quarter and semi final get to race less (they don’t take part in the quarter or semi-final repechage), while there is more racing for the more marginal teams.

In short, a much more interesting and fairer system.

Louis Vuitton Cup Schedule:
1-11 October: Round Robin One (9 teams)
22 October-1 November: Round Robin Two (9 teams)
12 November-19 November: Quarterfinals (8 teams)
23-30 November: Quarterfinal repechage (4 teams)
9-16 December: Semifinals (4 teams)
20-28 December: Semifinals repechage (2 teams)
11-21 January: Finals (2 teams)

America’s Cup
15 February-1 March