America's Cup 2013 - Of Roosters and Feather dusters

by Rob Kothe & the Sail-World Team on 11 Sep 2013 America's Cup 2013 Day 3 Oracle Team USA skipper Jimmy Spithill was under pressure at today’s press conference after the demoralising outcome of the fifth race with the runaway Emirates Team New Zealand win.

The Americans were leading at the bottom of leg 2 and once again threw the race away on leg three and post-race they asked for a postponement of Race six.

Here are some of Spithill’s comments from the Press Conference, the full video is below.

‘The boat was fine, we feel like we need to regroup. It’s obvious we need to make some changes.

‘Unless we made some changes we knew we could not be sure we could win race six.

‘We have to play the (postponement) card, when it’s for your benefit, the risk for us now is that if we have a breakdown.

‘They (Emirates Team New Zealand) are impressive upwind, but we can win races, we just need to be very very smart about the way we go about it.

‘The tack, (at the bottom of the course towards the right) itself was terrible technically. Then it was pretty soon obvious we had gone the wrong way.

‘With these boats if you make a mistake and you get absolutely punished for it’

Asked how safe he felt in his position at the moment.

‘You can be a rooster one day and a feather duster the next.

Asked if John Kostecki would be on the boat on Thursday, Spithill said ‘I can’t guarantee anything, I can’t guarantee I will be on the boat.

‘There is time to make appendage changes, sail changes, crew changes.

‘We are doing everything we can to win to keep the Cup in San Francisco.’

Here is the full press conference after race 5.