Campaign in peril as Ainslie loses again
Land Rover BAR flirt with making swift exit Britons admit fears over speed and roles on boat
Sir Ben Ainslie admitted his team were now “in a fight” to avoid being the first team to be dumped out of the America’s Cup after suffering their fourth defeat in succession in Bermuda yesterday, this time at the hands of Groupama Team France.
This was not in the script. France were supposed to be the whipping boys at this America’s Cup. They were the last team to launch, they have the smallest budget, they finished last in the America’s Cup World Series, they had only one practice boat – and their Cup boat is a refurbished version of that.
Yet they are proving far more stubborn than anyone expected. Artemis, the Swedish challengers who have Britain’s two-time Olympic champion Iain Percy on board, found that out on Sunday. And yesterday it was Ainslie’s turn to suffer at the hands of Franck Cammas.
Better known as an offshore sailor, Cammas was not expected to trouble the leading contenders. Even Land Rover BAR had allowed a hint of complacency to creep in.
When discussing their collision with Softbank Team Japan on Saturday, BAR’S chief executive Martin Whitmarsh said that one comforting aspect was the fact that – with the two points for winning the World Series last year, and the one they gained for beating Artemis Racing in their first race on Saturday – they were pretty certain of qualifying for the play-offs. “We’ve got three point,” Whitmarsh said. “It’s difficult to imagine one of the teams getting that many.”
He will not be nearly so confident now. France have been inspired over the past two days. Although they were hammered by Japan in the last race yesterday, they have managed to turn this qualifying series into a four-way scrap to avoid being the team sent home at the first hurdle, which will be the fate of the bottom-ranked team come Saturday evening.
Those two points for winning the World Series are looking more valuable by the day, especially as their rivals will require four points to beat them, with the World Series ranking used to break any tie. But they desperately need a win to get their momentum going. And at the moment it is difficult to see where it will come from.
Land Rover BAR face Artemis again today, the one team they have beaten, but the Swedish crew have stepped up their game since Saturday.
Not only did they beat Oracle Team USA on Sunday, it also took a hugely controversial last-mark penalty to prevent them beating Emirates Team NZ yesterday in what was the race of the qualifying series so far, featuring nine lead changes. Percy was heard over the on-board mic at the end shouting: “No way. It’s an absolute joke.”
The America’s Cup race management last night admitted that, in hindsight, it had made an error but that the “on-field” decision stood, keeping Artemis on two points. That could prove very important.
Asked what was going wrong and what he could do to change things, Ainslie denied that the damage from Saturday’s collision was affecting their performance.
He admitted they were struggling for pace upwind, but said mostly it was down to sailing technique. He also admitted to some communication issues, noting that tactician Giles Scott was having to spend much of his time with his head down grinding, helping to power the boat’s hydraulics, rather than reading the wind shifts and watching the opposition.
“Between me and him, we’ve got to work out how we take over the responsibility throughout the race on some of these key decisions,” he said.
Asked whether the Kiwis might therefore have got it right with their set-up, which has the four grinders on static bikes and frees up the tactician more, Ainslie pointed out – quite rightly – that Artemis managed to keep pace with New Zealand yesterday using a traditional set-up. Perhaps the most frustrating aspect for the British challenger was the fact that, for the third race running, they won the pre-start only to see their rivals come shooting past.
“Groupama had a higher mode sailing close to the wind and ground us down,” Ainslie said. Thereafter, errors with boat handling and decisions cost them again. “We had a terrible first tack on the second upwind leg,” he said. “It took us the rest of the race to get the oil reserves back up and we lost a lot of time getting the daggerboard down. Hats off to Franck, he sailed a great race. We’re in a fight with some other teams to avoid this last elimination spot. We need to improve.”