This post is part of my America’s Cup in San Francisco blog post series.

Today was race 8 of the Louis Vuitton Cup. With a win, Emirates Team New Zealand could close the series. But the weather was much different than in the past few races. The wind was hovering just below 10 kts and the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz were covered in fog. Depending on the wind direction, visibility changed and Alcatraz showed up for a brief moment.

I was happy to see the two boats passing close by on their way to the start line.

With these conditions, the two teams showed up late and didn’t do many practice starts or runs. The start was hidden in the fog and it was difficult to see mark 1 as well. Once the boats turned at mark 1, they started to appear.

Due to the light wind conditions, both Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa were using their spinnakers. This was the first time I saw them using the big sails during a race.

I was surprised to see that Luna Rossa’s spinnaker was much smaller than the one from Team New Zealand.

On the second downwind leg, the wind picked up a bit and it was sufficient for Team New Zealand to put the spinnaker away and race on the foils.

Luna Rossa still used the spinnaker as they didn’t seem to have enough speed to foil.

The Louis Vuitton Cup ended with Emirates Team New Zealand’s 7th win. They will face Oracle Team USA in the America’s Cup. Congratulations to ETNZ for their well earned win! I was happy to see how Luna Rossa improved over time. Unfortunately, they run out of time to be at the same level as ETNZ.