ACWS San Francisco Fleet Racing Championship – Tough race for Team BAR

by Ben Ainslie on 9 Oct 2012 The America’s Cup World Series San Francisco Fleet Racing Championship concluded in San Francisco, California today.

Ben Ainslie on the today’s racing:

Today was a tough race it was quite close racing and because of the points system in some ways nearly every boat had the chance to win. It was disappointing not to hang onto the lead but after a bad start we did a really good job to fight back and secure second so I couldn’t be happier with the way the week’s gone really in terms of training and preparation compared with last time around. It’s where we want to be and it gives us a great foundation for the future.

At the start we tried to squeeze into a gap and it was a bit tight, we conceded a penalty and we could have done a better job. The first beat we really struggled and that cost us a lot but after that we did well. The boys did a great job and to make gains from the back of the fleet to get fourth, so that was a great come back. Jimmy and his team did a great job today and it’s a shame we weren’t able to match them. Unfortunately today didn’t go our way, it’s the nature of this racing with the points stacked on Super Sunday on the last race. You have to perform on that final race and Jimmy and his team to their credit did just that, and they won the race and the regatta. We would have loved to have won that was our aim going into that race, but overall we’re really happy with the week. We’ve made some massive improvements from the last regatta and there is still a lot we can improve on.

I know we have been asked all week what the difference has been from last time, and it is definitely the preparation and time together on the water as a team. This week we had some solid races, we had pretty good starts and the guys just did a fantastic job sailing the boat fast and the boat handling was particularly good. Kyle did a great job with the tactical calls, when we did have some bad starts we just dug deep and pulled through. As I’ve said before there is still a lot we can improve on which I think is a nice thing, we’ll go away and look at that for the next event. Overall we had a great series here, the improvements from last time are massive and we know we have the ability to come back and start winning these events so that’s the plan moving forward.

AC World Series San Francisco Fleet Racing Championship (After 7 of 7 races)
1. ORACLE TEAM USA SPITHILL (Jimmy Spithill) 8-1-6-5-DNF-2-1 – 79
2. J.P. Morgan BAR (Ben Ainslie) 1-3-1-2-4-1-4 – 79 points
3. Artemis Racing – White (Terry Hutchinson) 10-2-2-1-3-3-3 – 72
4. Emirates Team New Zealand (Dean Barker) 2-8-5-6-1-4-7 – 57
5. ORACLE TEAM USA COUTTS (Russell Coutts) 3-5-8-7-8-10-2 – 56
6. Artemis Racing – Red (Nathan Outteridge) 4-4-4-4-9-8-5 – 52
7. Energy Team (Loick Peyron) 6-7-7-3-6-7-6 – 47
8. Team Korea (Peter Burling) 5-9-10-8-2-5-10 – 40
9. Luna Rossa Piranha (Chris Draper) 9-6-3-10-10-6-9 – 36
10. China Team (Phil Robertson) 7-10-11-9-5-11-8 – 28
11. Luna Rossa Swordfish (Iker Martinez) 11-11-9-11-7-9-11 – 20
(Scoring, Races 1-6: first = 12 points, second = 10, third = 9, fourth = 8, fifth = 7, sixth = 6, seventh = 5, eighth = 4, ninth = 3, 10th = 2, 11th = 1; Race 7: first = 40 points, second = 25, third = 20, fourth = 16, fifth = 13, sixth = 11, seventh = 10, eighth = 9, ninth = 8, 10th = 7, 11th = JP Morgan BAR Team website