2015 Americas Cup World Series – An initial tricky day in Sweden

by Groupama Team France on 30 Aug 2015 Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series – On the race zone of Gothenburg, the first day of racing gave rise to some fantastic battles between the six rivals.

With a backdrop of glorious sunshine and a WSW’ly breeze of between 12 and 16 knots, the Americans on Oracle Team USA dominated the day’s action on the water, winning both races contested and finishing in front of the English teams. Lacking inspiration during the first race, Groupama Team France made up for it in the second, really mixing it up with the head of the fleet.

After two days’ training in a powerful westerly wind, which saw the French crew continuing to make progress against their more seasoned rivals, this first day of racing proved tricky: “Our rivals are among the best racers in the world and they are more familiar with the boat than us. As such, it’s not entirely surprising that they’re ahead of us,” acknowledged the skipper of Groupama Team France on his return to shore.

“We’re still making too many small errors to stand a chance of keeping our place in the leading group like we did in the second race. In the first, we fluffed our start. We managed to make up ground on the Japanese but then fell into a windless zone, which caused us to lose contact. It’s a bit frustrating”.

Disappointed but not defeated, the crew of Groupama Team France know that it will be a long road to Bermuda. It will be a path strewn with obstacles for the others too, including Artemis which, after capsizing on Friday, hit the rocks this Saturday, severely damaging its foil and the casing.

In the second race, after posting a very good start that enabled it to round the first mark in third position behind Oracle Team USA and Emirates Team New Zealand, the French crew made some mistakes, that let the British and Japanese get across the finish line before them despite a very fine last lap.

Sixth in the provisional overall ranking then with a one-point deficit in relation to Artemis Racing and two shy of Softbank Team Japan, Groupama Team France will have to make the most of the light airs forecast for Sunday to make up some points and get back up into the fourth place they secured in Portsmouth. Fourth position is a place which perfectly reflects where they should be at in this campaign before they can begin to set their sights on upsetting the top trio made up of the Americans, the English and the New Zealanders.

Overall ranking after the first two races
1/ Oracle Team USA, Jimmy Spithill, 20 points
2/ Land Rover BAR, Ben Ainslie, 18 points
3/ Emirates Team New Zealand, Peter Burling, 16 points
4/ Softbank Team Japan, Dean Barker, 13 points
5/ Artemis Racing, Nathan Outteridge, 12 points
6/ Groupama Team France, Franck Cammas, 11 points