‘Marginal’ conditions take the wind out of Kiwis
Water torture How it happened: Burling admits error
Team New Zealand skipper Glenn Ashby called sailing conditions ‘‘marginal’’ as America’s Cup bosses face heat over allowing racing to continue in strong winds in Bermuda.
The Kiwis suffered extensive damage after a dramatic capsize in the last of four races on the Great Sound on Bermuda.
They had earlier suffered structural damage to a wingsail just trying to get to the course, forced to turn around and replace it, just making the start line on time to beat Britain in their opening clash of the day.
The boats in the other semifinal – Team Japan and Sweden’s Artemis Racing – returned to base patched up with tape after having expensive carbon-fibre fairings ripped off in a mix of wind and water surge.
Ben Ainslie, the most successful Olympic sailor, said he’d never experienced anything like it and other skippers spoke of being in survival mode, especially as they fell behind in races and concentrated on nursing their craft home.
Damage to boats is one thing, Team New Zealand helmsman Peter Burling said their spectacular capsize was their own fault but insists the damage is repairable and the syndicate will bounce back.
The Kiwis pitch-poled their AC50 in their fourth clash with Ben Ainslie yesterday. No crew were injured but the boat suffered significant damage.
Great Britain took the win to cut Team New Zealand’s lead to 3-1 in the bid to gain five wins and move through to the challenger’s final.
Having been stalled by Ainslie on the start line, Burling accelerated but then appeared to lose control and nose-dived and capsized rolling forward rather than sideways.
‘‘We feel it was fully our error, we
risking sailors is another as they were cleared to race in winds nearing the upper safety limit of a consistent 24 knots, sometimes gusting above that.
Noted New Zealand commentator Peter Lester felt the race organisers had gone beyond the were just trying to get off the start clean,’’ Burling said, adding he wasn’t worried about Ainslie getting away first, more about ‘‘staying out of trouble’’.
But that trouble appeared in an instant.
‘‘Just as we went to accelerate we got really high and then proceeded into a big bow-down trim. We will have to go over the footage to review it.
‘‘We thought we had a penalty at the start, we were effectively waiting for him to go and to follow him down. We accelerated as normal and got high on the foils and very soon after that we were going down very quickly.
‘‘It was then about making sure
reasonable boundaries.
‘‘In my mind [the wind speed] was above the upper limit, the boats shouldn’t have been racing,’’ Lester said.
‘‘The damage done to all the teams is substantial. Clearly, today, the safety of the crew was no-one was injured and thankfully there were no injuries.’’
Burling held his own press conference as he was late in, helping oversee the recovery.
He believed the team would recover quickly.
They may get some breathing space today with the forecast for stronger winds that could force a cancellation.
‘‘They are already working on the repairs,’’ he said of the shore crew beavering into action.
‘‘We will bounce back from this. We will get the boat back to 100 at some stage and get back out there.’’
Japan beat a struggling Swedish team in both their races to take a 3-1 lead in the other semifinal.
really compromised. Our guys dodged a bullet, there are one or two bumps and bruises and a few stitches but someone could have been really badly hurt. ‘‘The regatta has got off lightly.’’ Ashby was wary of being too critical but pointed to measures brought in four years ago in San Francisco when race limits were reduced from 33 knots to 23 knots in the wake of the death of Artemis Racing’s Andrew Simpson in a high-speed training crash.
‘‘It was certainly top end conditions,’’ Ashby said of the drama in Bermuda.
‘‘For any boats in those conditions it’s pretty on-the-edge sort of yachting, particularly with these boats ... super, super high performance, very powerful, very wicked.
‘‘The wind limit went from 33 knots to 23 knots in San Francisco and we are in an average of 24 knots in these boats.
‘‘These boats are doing about the same speeds we did in San Francisco in about 10-15 knots less wind speed. So you can imagine another 10 knots of wind speed in those big puffs that were coming through today.
‘‘So yeah, very marginal yachting to sail.
‘‘It was pretty top end conditions. Obviously there is a rolling average of 24 knots [for 30s] but when we were getting ready for the start with about a minute to go it was pretty much over that, I think.’’