America's Cup - Oracle Team USA reports on Day 1 of Practice Racing

by Oracle Team USA on 23 Jan 2017 Oracle Team USA sailing team manager and tactician Tom Slingsby called Day 1 of practice racing a success.

Although the team had split results in its three races, Slingsby says the learnings were big.

'Today was one of the shiftiest wind directions, blowing at about 14 to 17 knots, so it was a very tough day for the grinders. There was a lot of adjustments, course changes, and tacking when you didn't think you were going to tack,' he said.

'All of those things require 'oil' movement (hydraulic pressure). In the first race that we lost it was a real eye-opener. Basically we were trying to use more energy than we could provide. But we learned from that and did much better in the next two.'

The racing was a perfect example of how physically demanding these America's Cup boats are. Every adjustment requires energy that gets input from the grinders. The sailors call it moving oil, as a reference to the hydraulic systems that control everything from the daggerboard pitch to the wing trim.

'Usually when you're sailing in a straight line you can be fairly stable and can manage the oil well, but as soon as you get unstable, Jimmy is making more pitch adjustments (to the daggerboards), Kyle is trimming the wing more and it snowballs pretty quickly.

'The wind shifts, the chop from the extra chaseboats on the race course, it makes it pretty thirsty on the hydraulics.

'As soon as we figured out why we were so unstable, we were able to make some adjustments and we were much better.'

Slingsby says the team is quietly confident after the day's session.

'We're sailing well and we're confident we can win every race. When we lost that first one it was an eye-opener but the guys made adjustments and we were getting better and better.'

The forecast is for lighter conditions on Saturday when training will resume.