Brits are storming back in America’s Cup showdown

Already through, LandroverBAR had their final two qualifying races on Bermuda’s Great Sound and delivered probably their best day’s racing in the competition so far. They beat the Japanese SoftBank team in their first race and after losing the start against the competition favourites Team USA, they sailed a fine race to stay close to rivals who had crushed them in the first series of round-robin matches.

Ainslie’s team will now face Emirates Team New Zealand in the semi-finals that begin today and will be decided in a series of match races. Sweden’s Artemis team will race SoftBank in the other semi-final. From those four boats one will emerge to take on defender Oracle in the America’s Cup match two weeks from now.

For LandroverBAR it was a tough week but the team and the boat are fast improving. On February 6 they and the other five contestants launched their race boats. All of the teams except New Zealand had their boats in New Zealand. They said it took 55,000 man hours to build and as your friendly mechanic will tell you, that’s only the labour. The 50ft boat cost millions of pounds. “I name this boat Rita. May God bless all who sail on her,” said Ainslie’s wife Georgie, who had been asked to the honours.

The name “Rita” was a story in itself, dating back to the Optimist World Championships in Tenerife 25 years ago. Ainslie was then 15 and before the race his mother Sue visited a Catholic church in the city named after St Rita. She brought back a St Rita badge and sewed it onto her teenage son’s lifejacket. He won that regatta and thought that maybe the badge had brought him luck.

Thereafter he would call every boat that he ever sailed Rita. Among other things, St Rita is the patron saint of hopeless causes. On that February day in Bermuda, Georgie Ainslie pushed the button that would unleash a bottle of champion in the direction of a steel pole. Alas, nothing happened and a crew member had to take a hammer to the bottle. “Let’s hope the campaign goes more smoothly than that did,” Ben Ainslie said quietly.

On that same day, 9,000 miles away in Auckland, Team New Zealand launched their boat. It had four cycling pedestals built into the hulls of their cataraman and while every other team would be relying on arm power and grinding to produce its power, the Kiwis would be using leg power. Other teams tried to highlight the downside of this design but if it worked, it was likely to be a game-changer.

Seven days of competition have shown that the Kiwi cyclists are working. Before yesterday’s error-ridden loss to Team USA, New Zealand had been the most impressive team through the first week. As the defender with a guaranteed place in the final, Team USA was everyone’s favourite at the beginning. They remain favourites after winning the qualifying series and New Zealand are the team considered most likely to come through from the challengers.

Ainslie’s fear that the misfiring champagne bottle might have been a portent of things to come at times seemed about to be realised. But the team have fought back and the boat is getting better. As the crews become more adept at sailing these fast and sometimes volatile boats, the starts become ever more important. With Ainslie’s penchant for aggressive and often brilliant manoeuvres at the start, the British crew has an advantage in this area. LandroverBAR have made the semi-finals courtesy of two fine victories over the highly rated Swedish boat, Artemis, and yesterday’s impressive win over Team Japan. The battling defeat to Oracle puts the team in much better place going into the semi-finals than anyone would have considered possible five days days ago.

Ainslie’s skill in the start zone has been a significant plus. Through the last eight days he has won seven from ten starts and his skilful pinning down of Team Japan in yesterday’s pre-start was brutally effective and virtually decided the race. By the time Ainslie’s boat reached the first gate, it had established a 200m lead. Team Japan got back into the race but were always playing catch-up and were beaten by 13sec.

In this kind of match racing, there is an 80% correlation between winning the start and winning the race. Earlier in the week, LandroverBAR were winning the starts but losing the racesn. It was ironic that Ainslie should have got his start wrong in the second of yesterday’s races because of all his rivals, Jimmy Spithill and the Oracle team was the one that BAR could least afford to concede any advantage to. Spithill and his crew never surrendered their lead but it was still an impressive BAR performance, perhaps their best at the America’s Cup so far as they kept the favourites in their sights throughout the race and in the relatively lighter winds, they stayed on their foils throughout, executing their turns far more smoothly than earlier in the race.

Far from beaten or vanquished, Ainslie is nevertheless realistic. “It’s been a challenge, that’s for sure,” he said. “The toughest I’ve faced. We’ve had a range of issues. There are some areas where we’re competitive, some where we’re not. Every day we’ve been asking, ‘What can we do to improve things? How can we develop?’ No one in the team wants to throw in the towel.”

To progress to the challenger qualifying final, the LandroverBAR boat probably needs the winds at which it is most effective but yesterday’s improvement was notable and suggested more versatility than had previously been apparent. But the Kiwis’ cycling-generated option gives them a clear advatage. In most of their races the helmsman Peter Burling and tactician Blair Tuke have stood quietly on the cataraman, almost able to admire the scenery while occasionally checking on how far back their rivals are.

Yesterday’s loss to Team USA, caused by two Burling mistakes, was a reminder to the Kiwis that things change quickly in the America’s Cup. “We’re now two from two against the Kiwis,” said Spithill after a win that meant his Oracle Team USA won the qualifying series. Team USA now stand aside for two weeks as the four surviving challengers battle for the right to race them in the final.

Ainslie wasn’t denying that his team have a huge challenge against Emirates Team New Zealand. “They’ve just done a great job,” he said. But how much of their performance is down to the pedalling innovation. “Certainly it’s a more efficient system,” he added. “Team USA have gone for a hybrid system [one cycling pedestal], which is not bad either.

“There are moments when you get the boat settled and our guys are on their knees grinding and that’s a cleaner ­situation. But obviously the cyclists ­create more power and when the boat gets hard to handle, having the cycling power is certainly going to be very efficient.”

Team New Zealand lost an 8-1 lead to Team USA in the last America’s Cup. They have come to this edition nursing some grievance. Speaking of the 9-8 defeat in San Francisco three years ago, their CEO Grant Dalton said: “I don’t think you ever get over that. If you do, you haven’t got red blood running through you. We are very much the lone wolf.”

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America’s Cup, playoff semi-finals
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