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Team New Zealand in action - Source: Photosport -
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One of the most difficult aspects of promoting sailing as a television sport is the fickleness of the weather; no wind, no racing. Untold hours have been spent hanging around waiting for wind with TV schedules shredded.
There is a tendency to think that yachting is the only sport subject to weather delays until visions are conjured up of covers being rolled across tennis courts and cricket pitches with sodden spectators looking deeply miserable.
That said, it's equally easy to recall glassy seas with fleets of boats heading out to sea to float around for hours for before heading back in to port without setting a sail.
And that's what has made the experience so far in Cascais so extraordinary.
The Portuguese port is renowned world-wide as one of the great yachting venues and that fact that the race schedule here hasn't missed a beat speaks volumes.
Eight races in this first of five Audi MedCup regattas have been completed and none of them have been in light or fluky conditions. Far from it in fact. The breeze has been strong and solid with enough variation to make it very challenging. The afterguards have had to work overtime to spot the shifts and with the wind piping up to 25 knots it's been hard work for the crews.
After their first day blip. Emirates Team New Zealand have
revelled in the conditions and now sit with one hand on the Trofeu
de Portugal. At the same time they've taken the high ground against
arch rivals Team Origin, the British boat threatening early before
fading badly in the 40 mile coastal race.
Rivalry
What is significant about the rivalry between Dean Barker and Emirates Team New Zealand and Ben Ainslie's Origin is that it has already been long running yet has potentially a very long way to run.
The two skippers duelled in Olympic dinghies for years and in a variety of keel boats with Ainslie the B-boat driver in ETNZ's America's Cup campaign in Valencia for which Barker credits the Briton for helping him lift his game to a new level.
Returning the compliment Ainslie would concede that he learned a huge amount during his years with ETNZ not just about handling a big America's Cup boat but also about how to run an America's Cup campaign.
And while at Olympic level fleet racing - with his three golds and a silver - Ainslie has no current peer, in international match racing Barker has the edge.
The duel will play out extensively this northern summer with 50 races over five regattas in the Audi Medcup along with the Louis Vuitton regattas in Italy starting next week and then Dubai in November and Hong Kong in January.
As the 34th America's Cup begins to take shape there will likely be many more more LV events and it's expected the TP52 circuit will also develop further as a proving ground for America's Cup syndicates.
2014 is being bandied about as the probable date for the next Cup so that's another four years for the rivalry to grow and the Barker and Ainslie are still only in their 30s.
So, much to look forward to and more immediately the prospect of ETNZ drawing first blood here in Cascais after a compelling performance this week.
