Ainslie curses disastrous start
British crew forfeit race after wing-sail breaks New Zealand handed 2-0 lead in semi-final
If Land Rover BAR dodged a bullet on Sunday when racing was cancelled because of a complete lack of breeze – almost certainly saving them from going 2-0 down to lightwind specialists New Zealand in their America’s Cup play-off semifinal – the British challenger took one squarely between the eyes yesterday.
This was luck evening itself out in the cruellest way possible; a mechanical failure to their wingsail – their first in years – just a couple of minutes into the first race of the day, forcing them to retire with boat damage, the noise of crunching carbon-fibre ringing out across Bermuda’s Great Sound.
Their misfortune was compounded by the fact that they also had to forfeit the second race in the best-of-nine series. Unable to sail the boat back to their base to get their spare wing, they had to be pushed back to the dockyard by their chase boats. It took so long, they ran out of time to make the switch.
“Was it Winston Churchill who said: ‘When one door closes another one slams in your face’?” asked an exasperated Sir Ben Ainslie afterwards.
Certainly, it seems that every time the British team take one step forward, they are forced to take a couple back.
It will be a long way back from 2-0 down to a team of New Zealand’s calibre. A long way but not impossible. The one encouraging aspect from yesterday was the British team’s speed and boat-handling in the small bit of racing we did see.
Much had been made of Ainslie’s aggressive starts – and they could well still prove to be a factor, especially in strong winds, possibly ap- Today’s schedule TV proaching the 24-knot limit, which are forecast today and tomorrow.
But the one we saw yesterday did not appear to unduly ruffle New Zealand’s young helm Peter Burling. The 26-year-old, the youngest helm at this America’s Cup and an Olympic gold medallist in the 49er at last year’s Olympics, managed to get the boats out of sync in the pre-start, got down to the layline first and although he had slightly less of a run-up to the start line, he managed to hit it at fractionally more pace and led down to the first mark.
You might then have expected New Zealand to pull clear but instead the British boat gained ground on the first downwind leg, rounding the mark cleanly before a loud noise forced Ainslie to stop the boat. “The wing just went pop and basically it went from being our normal setting to being max camber and max power,” said wing trimmer Paul Campbell-james. “We had no way of really controlling it. We’re absolutely gutted because we thought that was our day today.
“In three years of sailing we have maybe had one wing breakage. And here we are in the first race of the semi-finals and it goes pop. We were really confident today. It would have been fascinating going up that first beat and seeing how we compared [with the Kiwi boat].”
Ainslie decided to pass up the opportunity to switch the wings last night and head out for a practice sail, saying there were other upgrades and changes the team wanted to make to the boat.
“I think the early analysis is that we can be back racing with the same wing, just replacing the part,” he said. “That would be the ideal situation for us. The guys will work through the night to get that done and then we’ll head out in the morning.”
Asked whether he expected other teams to suffer mechanical gremlins in the strong winds, he added: “You can see the tolerances are so small, who knows what might happen.”
In the other semi-final, Swedish challenger Artemis came from behind in the final race of the day to drawl things level at one race apiece in their match-up with Japan.