Ainslie relief as the ‘Bear’ keeps America’s Cup dream alive
Veteran Macbeth helps GB challenger to victory Crucial triumph should ensure semi-final place
From the depths of despair – “about as low as I can remember the team in four years”, according to grinder and bow-man Freddie Carr – to that sweet, sweet feeling of pressure released. Could this have been the allimportant momentum-changer for the British challenger at this America’s Cup?
How Land Rover BAR needed this. After four successive defeats that had left them by their own admission fighting to avoid being dumped out of the 35th America’s Cup at the first hurdle this weekend, the pressure was on them yesterday like never before.
They responded with a victory over Artemis Racing which was as smooth as it was welcome, moving them up to four points in the table and virtually assuring themselves of qualification to the play-offs, which begin on Sunday.
They are not there yet performance-wise. Not by a long chalk. But they may have turned a corner.
There were a few things to note about this win. First, it came in much the same wind range – 10-13 knots – as their only other win to date in this qualifying series, also against Artemis, last Saturday.
That suggests the British team perhaps prefer the light-to-medium stuff. Every team have two sets of foils, one for light conditions and one for heavy. But their sweet spots are all different. Land Rover BAR struggled in the heavier stuff against France on Monday. Carr admitted it was “probably not a coincidence” that they had twice beaten their Swedish rivals twice in the same wind range.
Second, it came with Jono Macbeth on board. At 44, the Kiwi sailor is getting a bit long in the tooth. His primary role these days is as Land Rover BAR’S sailing team manager. But he is also a three-time America’s Cup winner with vast experience.
Sir Ben Ainslie had flagged up issues of communication in the defeat by France on Monday, saying the team needed to find the right balance and to work better on board. It appears Macbeth’s mere presence made a difference; helping establish the right atmosphere.
“The bloke’s done, like, 20 America’s Cup matches,” Carr noted. “You cannot buy that experience. I think Jono would be the first to say that, physically, guys like Bleddyn [Mon] and Neil [Hunter], the young guys who also sail in his spot, are fitter. He’s still a strong old beast. That’s why we call him the Bear. But his temperament blew me away. In four years of sailing with BAR, that is actually the first race I have done with Jono. But he brought an attitude on to the boat that resonated across the crew.”
Ainslie was similarly impressed. “That was why I wanted him on the boat, because we’ve been having a tough time,” he said. “It makes a big difference. If the guys on the other boats look across and see him, it probably puts the shivers down them a little bit. It helped to settle the boat today and that’s what you need, to bring on some big name players and put on a performance.”
For the fourth time in four races, Ainslie won the start, judging that Nathan Outteridge, the Aussie helm of Artemis, was a little early and tight coming into the pin. He tacked around the outside to hit the line with more speed.
From there, Land Rover BAR barely put a foot wrong, tactician Giles Scott calling the shots and reading the conditions well, and Ainslie managing to keep the boat flying virtually the entire race, apart from a little touchdown at the second leeward gate. They eventually won by 30 seconds.
With the two points they had in the bag from winning the America’s Cup World Series – and with their rivals needing to beat them by a clear point to go through because of the tiebreaker system – Land Rover BAR’S four points are almost certainly enough to see them through to the play-off semi-finals.
There will be bigger tests to come. And they have to prove they can do it both up and down the wind range – they will face New Zealand and France today in very light winds. But it was a start and one they must build on.