British broken but unbowed
Master sailor Sir Ben Ainslie is confident his team can repair their boat and make the start line for today’s racing against Team New Zealand at the America's Cup challenger semifinals off Bermuda.
The British outfit was forced to withdraw from their opening playoff race against the Kiwis yesterday when their wing was damaged in strong winds and they could not repair it in time for the second race.
The problem was initially diagnosed as a broken camber arm. Each team carries two wings, so it would have been a relatively straightforward process replacing the broken one, if it couldn’t be repaired in time.
“It was a tough day for the team to lose two races like that so early on in the piece, considering what's at stake here, but I've got a lot of belief in the team that this is something they can come back from,” Ainslie said. “We've had tough times in the past and been able to turn those around. The guys are in the shed now, analysing exactly what went wrong, fixing the problem and we'll be back out, pushing hard.”
The incident occurred just after BAR rounded the bottom mark six seconds behind Team NZ and were setting themselves up to split left upwind.
“It was just at the exit of that round-up that we heard a crunching sound from the wing,” Ainslie said. “In that situation, it's all too easy to ignore it and keep racing, because we want to be out there and pushing hard.
“But it was the right thing to stop the boat and analyse it, and thank God we did or we'd still be out there, picking bits of carbon out of the bay.
“It was something to do with our wing control system and a breakdown that was pretty catastrophic, but we're confident we can fix that and be out there with the same wing and the same performance.”
Forecasts for today suggest the winds will be even stronger, putting even more stress on the ACC boats. Ainslie dismissed any doubts about the ability of his boat to withstand heavier conditions, which were expected to make him more competitive against Team NZ.
“These boats are incredibly highperformance, technical racing machines and we're pushing them to the limit,” he said. “But this was a breakdown we haven't experienced before and we've sailed the boat in a lot stronger conditions. I have every confidence in our equipment to be able to come out racing, to get around the course and be fast.”
The other semifinal is evenly poised after Dean Barker helmed Team Japan home against Artemis Racing in the first race and the Swedes drew level in the second.