Ben Ainslie’s Land Rover BAR must beat Emirates Team New Zealand in at least two of their three races today to keep alive their hopes of lifting the America’s Cup after the winds in Bermuda blew in New Zealand’s favour yesterday and cancelled racing.
New Zealand lead 3-1 in the best-of-nine semi-final in the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup Challenger Play-Offs and with an extra race scheduled for today, two wins for New Zealand would send Ainslie’s team home.
The wind is expected to ease to about 12-16 knots, more within New Zealand’s comfort zone having capsized in strong winds in their previous race on Tuesday. “It sets up two campaign-defining days for us,” Freddie Carr, the Land Rover BAR grinder, said. “We know we’ve got to win two, our goal will be to win all three. It’s in a good spot for our boat. We’re pleased with our boat speed in the 12-16 knot range, so we’re happy to race in that tomorrow.”
After suffering serious damage in Tuesday’s crash, there were doubts that New Zealand would be able to make the start line is strong winds yesterday. Fortunately for them, the wind speed went above the 24-knot maximum causing racing to be cancelled, giving them an extra 24 hours to get their boat ready.
While the structure of their boat was said to have been sound, there were rumours that they had to build a new wing made up of part of the wing they had damaged earlier in the day and parts salvaged from the accident. Some of the systems on board might not be completely tested until they hit the water today.
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“There is no doubt in my mind that they would have been ready to race, but there’s no doubt another 24 hours in the shed will benefit them,” Carr said.
“By hook or crook they would have been out there. There was no mindset in our team that we will have been sailing round a course by ourselves.”
Carr was in the BAR boat when the New Zealand crash happened and as the bowman, he faces backwards in the boat and had a close-up view.
“Ben did a great job in the pre-start and knew that out bear-away was a bit hairy as we were getting up to speeds of 43 knots,” he said. “I watched them put the bow down and the overriding thing for me was just how high they flew out of the water. It reminded me of when we were doing our dinghy sailing camps and we were a little out of control and would have huge crashes.
“A second before they even went over, I thought, ‘They are going to have a big one here,’ and you saw the result. It was spectacular and devastating for those guys.”
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Blair Tuke, the foil trimmer for New Zealand, was thrown so far from the New Zealand boat that he was picked out of the water by the Land Rover BAR chase boat, one of three New Zealand sailors to hit the water when the boat went over.
“I couldn’t recall a situation where they have had as big an incident as they did and it will have been hard for them to go out and race in similar conditions,” Carr said. “They’d have gone out and given it a good old go, because they are great sailors but, hand on heart, if that had happened to us in the first bear away in a race, you’d have it in the back of your mind, so it might have put them on their heels a bit.”
But there is confidence back in the Land Rover BAR crew after an unfortunate time on Monday, when they were forced to forfeit their first two races of the semi-final. New Zealand had a similar problem before racing on Tuesday but managed to get back in time to swap the wing before the opening race.
“One thing that really put us in good stead [on Tuesday] is we went out first thing in the morning in 20-24 knots, got our top speed and felt utterly confident in our machine, so when we went out in the afternoon we had our chests puffed out,” Carr said. “They had a problem with their race wing, didn’t get any warm-up practice and the first time they reached at speed yesterday was when they went down the first reach in the race.
“So you have to doff your cap to them in that first race, but as we saw in the second race the way they sail their boat with the helmsman not doing the raking, at times you can get a little out of whack with that situation. For 99 per cent of the time their ride high control is spot on but it is obviously a little hard in those situations.”