Going into this week’s America’s Cup match-up practice racing session, Artemis Racing skipper Nathan Outteridge spoke about how match racing skills have always been a big part of a successful campaign and how Artemis are now working hard at improving their “dogfighting” tactics.

With just over four weeks left until the start of the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup Challenger Qualifying races, a double round-robin series that will eliminate one challenger, speculations around how the racing in Bermuda will look run rampant.

Bermuda’s World Series event last year, sailed in the smaller AC45F, was all fleet racing, six boats on the course at once with points for all places. Now the focus has shifted completely to match-racing tactics. Only two boats race on the course at a time. It will really be a cat fight.

“For most people it probably doesn’t mean a lot, but it is a completely different game now,” Outteridge said. “Now you can’t just go around the course sailing conservatively, trying to get seconds and thirds [in a series of races within a regatta] and hoping that’s going to be enough to win. Now you are either going to win or lose a race.”

The boat that wins a round-robin match gets a point. Losers get none. After the teams have each raced against all others twice, the four highest-scoring challengers move into multiple matches against a single competitor in the play-off semi-finals, the finals and the ultimate America’s Cup Match against Oracle Team USA.

According to Outteridge, the start is the most important part of a match race. He describes the pre-start as a “dogfight” where you are trying to get the best position when the gun goes off, trying to put your opponent in a tricky spot or working hard just to get an even start.

“We have been working hard on that and with a couple more weeks to the America’s Cup, the pre-start is the biggest area where we need to improve. Usually when we get around the first mark first, we feel pretty confident”, Outteridge said of his team, who made it through the last race week undefeated.

With the America’s Cup course, the start is an off wind “reaching” sprint to a midcourse turning mark where the boats make a hard left turn to head downwind to the leeward gate. Top speed to and around that first mark is essential.

Looking ahead at this week, and to the event itself, the Swedish team’s Australian skipper said the racing will become more intense and exciting as the stakes get higher.

“You will see higher risk sailing, because when you are behind you have to throw in the more difficult manoeuvres to get back into the race,” Outteridge said. “Match racing is a very different type of racing but we are looking forward to that challenge and we feel like we are making good progress.”

Yesterday was the second day of the present America’s Cup practice session. Land Rover BAR and Emirates Team New Zealand both took to the water early and returned to their bases by midday. BAR have said that they only plan to practice race tomorrow and Friday this week.

Artemis, SoftBank Team Japan and Oracle stayed out into the afternoon making the best of their possible practice time. Oracle said Monday’s results were mixed after trading wins with Artemis.

Three teams that were out for Monday’s practice won at least one race — Artemis, Oracle and Team Japan. Groupama Team France were winless.

There is a lot of testing going on, more than racing. All the teams are focused on winning in May. Of course, that is when winning will mean you go on or you go home.

It is more like a practice scrimmages where the coach blows the whistle and has everybody try something different. This is a chance for testing and training probably even more than it is for “racing”.

The same teams each went racing again yesterday, but also spent time on several line-ups to test different configurations that will help them mode their boats to increase speed.

New Zealand have only been sailing in Bermuda since Saturday and have yet to match-up in a race situation with any of the other competitors. They have been caught on video by Jason Smith of myislandhomebda, a YouTube channel that has gone AC-viral with his complete coverage.

In those clips the Kiwi boat has shown remarkable manoeuvrability.

She looks dry and fast in practice tacks and gybes. They look fast in a straight line, too, but then all of these boats do when they are running alone. Actual racing, not practice, will be the real deal.

When Team New Zealand skipper Glenn Ashby was questioned about his team’s participation in this practice session, match racing against the other teams, he said: “We will see how we go. We need to take our time to make sure we are happy with where we are at before starting any racing.

“But it will be good to get into some action with another boat as amazingly it is something we have not done at all yet.”