The celebrations were not too long for Sir Ben Ainslie’s Land Rover BAR team after they made a winning start to the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series (ACWS) on home water last month, but as the series rolls into Gothenburg this weekend, they know that many see them as the team to beat.
The opening event in Portsmouth was seen as a big success, despite the storm that forced the second day of racing to be abandoned. Losing the Sunday races, which count as double points, was a blow to BAR, who had won the opening race and finished runners-up in the second, as they would have hoped to open an early lead on their rivals.
Gothenburg will do well to get close to the crowds that lined the Solent but the home team, Artemis, do not have a figurehead such as Ainslie and also had a poor start, finishing fifth and last in the two races in Portsmouth. Things could not have gone much worse before this weekend, as they capsized during a practice race and had to be towed back to the dock.
BAR won the final practice race, but the strong winds that blew on the Kattegat yesterday will become increasingly light during the weekend, making for very different conditions and harder work for the sailors.
“It’s a very different race course, much smaller and tighter, so it will be a tougher challenge for the teams and crews in terms of handling the boats around the course, meaning even tighter racing — so it’s going to be tough on the water,” Ainslie, the BAR skipper, said.
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BAR, Oracle Team USA and Emirates Team New Zealand were the teams on the pace in Portsmouth and little should change, with the teams racing identical AC45 boats. Meanwhile, the teams are all hard at work developing test boats that will form the basis of the yachts to challenge for the next America’s Cup, in Bermuda in 2017.
“We have been focusing mainly on our testing development for our second test boat,” Ainslie said. “We have done some preparation and training but the main focus has really been on the design side.
“So, getting out on the race boat again this week, sailing on the race course for the first time and having the official practice race has given us a good opportunity to learn more about the course and the conditions. But that is pretty much the same for all of the teams and we’d expect everyone to have been developing from Portsmouth, so the competition will only keep getting tougher and tougher.”
There will be two races each day this weekend, with tomorrow’s races counting double before the series heads to Hamilton, Bermuda, for the final race this year in October. There will be up to six races next year, with the winner of the ACWS taking a two-point lead into the America’s Cup Challenger Series.
“We feel that we have made good progress as a team, but there’s a long, long way to go still,” Ainslie said. “It’s going to be a tough circuit and the competition is absolutely right up there, which is what we expected.”