America's Cup - Brits put on Game Face as racing stalled for a day

by Land Rover BAR and Sail-World on 26 May 2017 The America’s Cup Event Authority (ACEA), and America’s Cup Race Management (ACRM), have announced that the strong winds in Bermuda has meant that day one of the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup Qualifiers and the Official Opening Ceremony of the 35th America’s Cup has had to be postponed.

Forecasts indicate that winds may gust over 30 knots during the afternoon and evening, so with the safety of the sailors and spectators as the key priority, ACEA and ACRM have decided to postpone Friday’s events. Saturday 27th May and the days following are all forecast to have significantly improved weather conditions, so the four races scheduled to take place on Friday 26th May will now be added to the race schedules for the subsequent days.

Ahead of the start of the 35th America’s Cup, the Helmsman of all six teams competing came face to face in a pre-event press conference today (Thursday 25th May) in the Press Conference Room at the America’s Cup Village.

Sir Ben Ainslie, Team Principal and Skipper remarked: “We are feeling good about starting the competition. It’s been documented that we’ve struggled with straight line speed in some of the practice races and that is something we are working really hard to rectify. We saw in the last Cup just how quickly the competition can change, we know all of the teams will be developing their race boats throughout the Cup - so are we - and we are pushing incredibly hard to be up there and be super-fast.

'We have the two bonus points going into this initial round, from the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series win, which will hopefully be very useful but we also have a lot of support, especially from our partners and investors and it means a lot for the whole team - that they believe in us. I’m also incredibly proud of everything that has been achieved so far, in such a short time.

“We believe we can win this competition, I wouldn’t be sitting her now and our team wouldn’t be working as hard as they are if we didn’t. We respect our competition massively, at this stage all the teams are competition, this is an incredibly tough event to win but we believe we can do it.'

For top sailing correspondent and author Mark Chisnell's latest story on Ben Ainslie and Land Rover BAR click here