America's Cup - Emirates Team NZ to play catch up in Toulon

by Sail-World.com on 6 Sep 2016 The clock continues to countdown towards the end of the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series, with the eighth event taking place in Toulon, France 9th - 11th September.

Groupama Team France will join the list of Challengers to host a home Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series event.

Rio Olympic Gold medalists, helmsman Peter Burling and trimmer Blair Tuke, will rejoin the Emirates Team New Zealand AC45 for Toulon.

“We are excited to be getting back into the Emirates Team New Zealand environment, and back racing on the world series,” said helmsman Peter Burling

“For the past four years, we have been working towards dual goals with the Olympics and the America’s Cup. With the gold medal now won, it feels good to now have a singular focus being part of Emirates Team New Zealand.”

The Emirates Team New Zealand line-up will revert to the regular crew that has sailed together for six of the seven Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series events so far. They will be led by skipper Glenn Ashby who will be back trimming the wing.

“We will go into this regatta feeling confident, we took a huge amount away from the last event in Portsmouth at the end of July.” explained Ashby

“Changing positions like we did to cover Pete and Blair's absence, we gained a really valuable first-hand understanding of each others roles onboard, which going forward will be a great asset in terms of crew maneuvers.”

It is now getting to the business end of the series, where vital points are on the table to take forward into the Louis Vuitton Qualifiers and potentially America’s Cup match in nine months time, so every race counts.

Ashby explained that it is only getting more and more intense, but the pressure is on the leading teams to not trip up.

“We will be gunning for them, don’t worry about that. We just need to sail as well as we know we can be consistent, and we should be right there in the mix.”

The Emirates Team New Zealand shore crew including grinder Guy Endean have been in Toulon already working hard to repair one of the AC45 daggerboards that was badly damaged having tagged a mooring buoy in the middle of the bottom mark gate during the final race of the last event in Portsmouth.



The Emirates Team New Zealand crew for Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series Toulon is:

Glenn Ashby (Skipper)
Peter Burling (Helmsman)
Ray Davies (Tactician)
Blair Tuke (Trimmer)
Guy Endean (Grinder)

Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series Overall Leaderboard

Land Rover BAR 367
Oracle Team USA 366
Emirates Team NZ 357
Softbank Team Japan 328
Artemis 315
Groupama Team France 292

The overall winner of the ACWS takes two points into the America's Cup Qualification Series, the second placed team takes one point into the ACWS.

Currently there is only one more ACWS event scheduled after Toulon - in Fukuoka, Japan from November 18-20, 2016. There are no ACWS events currently scheduled in 2017.

One team is eliminated from the America's Cup Qualification Series, with four Challengers progressing to the Play-Offs.