Red Bull Youth AC- Solid First Day for Australia in the Trial Series

by Simon Reffold on 28 Aug 2013 Ahead of the Red Bull Youth America’s Cup starting September first in San Francisco, objective Australia had a solid first day in the trials series.

This trial regatta is a test event for teams and officials after an intensive one month training programme in the AC45’s.

All the boats have been standardised and today all ten teams from around the world were using their regatta sails, so today’s results really are an indication of form.

The racing was held in typical breeze for the San Francisco bay – around 11-17 knots out of the West, there was little tide though.

In the first race the favoured Kiwis dominated – Peter Burling and Will Tiller both nailing the start and maintained good speed. However, Objective Australia skippered by Jason Waterhouse had a solid race after an average start to finish in third place.

In the second race though, the Aussie’s dominated from start to finish with the US team picking up second in front of the Kiwi’s.

Coach Traks Gordon said: 'It's a promising start, obviously it only counts when the main event starts but it seems today at least, that the work has paid off and we are on the right track. Many things can be better though so we’ll focus on that tomorrow'.

Skipper Jason Waterhouse was happy; 'The guys did well today. Suddenly we were in a race setting but the training has been good and we all kept cool heads which is so important. We have to sail minimum risk in this fleet, I don’t think there will be too many Jesus cards handed out!'

The trails regatta continues tomorrow with two more races ahead of an enforced two day rest before the Red Bull Youth America’s Cup starts on September Objective Racing FacebooK page