J.P Morgan BAR Boat and crew tested in Istanbul

by JP Morgan on 15 Sep 2014 A tense and tough final day completed four days of racing in Istanbul, leaving J.P. Morgan BAR frustrated and disappointed with their performance at the finale of Act 6. Seven races were sailed, the final of the day acting as a double pointer, taking it to 31 in total in Turkey’s iconic and largest city.

Despite good racing conditions, a series of incidents of boat damage and gear failure left the team unable to piece together the performance they needed, and the Brits struggled to deliver on the racecourse. Skipper, Ben Ainslie summarised, 'It was just a really frustrating day, between the gear failure, damage with the other boats and not sailing particularly well, it was one of our worst days of the series.

'But, the only thing you can do on days like this is put your head down and work out what’s best to do and how to move forward and improve.'

The team?'s Extre?me 40 cr?aned out? of the ?water, r?eady for? the sho?re team ?to repai?r the da?mage

Tactician, Paul Goodison, added, 'Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. We missed a race because we had a problem with the sail, so it was frustrating to sit out, then we had another boat go into the back of us, which punched a hole, leaving us taking on water for the rest of the day.'

However, the team kept their calm and managed to claw themselves a couple of places up the leaderboard, using the final double pointer to it’s full potential to leave them in seventh place overall, on 143 points. Goodison continued, 'We fought ourselves out of some tough situations, the last race we were over the line [at the start] but we dug in and worked our way back and had a fairly solid final race. So, it was a tough day but we really did keep fighting until the end.'

A day of? full on? breeze ?conclude?s the ra?cing in ?Istanbul?

The British entry will now come together to reflect on the Act and look ahead to the next stop of the global series, Act 7, Nice, in less than three weeks. 'As a team we are naturally disappointed with how we ended up, we had a great result in Cardiff and we actually feel like now we have gone back a little bit.

'But, we have enjoyed Istanbul, it’s a great racing venue and gave us some of the best conditions so far. It’s a shame we couldn’t nail it at this one but when we get back to the UK we will have a good debrief and review what went wrong and work on what we can put right for the next event to come back fighting in Nice,' concluded bowman, Matt Cornwell.

On the overall leaderboard the team still sit in fifth place, with 29 points. The Extreme Sailing Series continues, with the final European stop on the circuit, Act 7, Nice – France, from second – October 5th.

Full J.P. Morgan BAR Act 6, Istanbul, Team list:

Skipper – Ben Ainslie

Tactician – Paul Goodison

Bowman – Matt Cornwell

Trimmer – Nick Hutton

Fifth Man – Bleddyn Mon

Shore Team

Jono Macbeth

Johnny Mourdant

Ian Mccabe

Ian Barker

Alex Hopson

Extreme Sailing Series™ Act 6 Istanbul standings after Day 4, 31 races (14.09.14)

Position / Team / Points

1st Emirates Team New Zealand (NZL) 210 points.
2nd The Wave, Muscat (OMA) 204 points.
3rd Alinghi (SUI) 188 points.
4th Oman Air (OMA) 169 points.
5th SAP Extreme Sailing Team (DEN) 154 points.
6th Groupama sailing team (FRA) 148 points.
7th J.P. Morgan BAR (GBR) 143 points.
8th Red Bull Sailing Team (AUT) 142 points.
9th Realteam by Realstone (SUI) 135 points.
10th GAC Pindar (AUS) 130 points.
11th Gazprom Team Russia (RUS) 126 points.
12th TeamTurx (TUR) 85 points.

Extreme Sailing Series™ 2014 overall standings
Position / Team / Points
1st Alinghi (SUI) 55 points.
2nd The Wave, Muscat (OMA) 54 points.
3rd Emirates Team New Zealand (NZL) 43 points.
4th Realteam by Realstone (SUI) 36 points.
5th J.P. Morgan BAR (GBR) 29 points.
6th SAP Extreme Sailing Team (DEN) 24 points.
7th Oman Air (OMA) 23 points.
8th Gazprom Team Russia (RUS) 23 points.
9th Red Bull Sailing Team (AUT) 23 points.
10th Groupama sailing team (FRA) 20 points.
11th GAC Pindar (AUS) 6 points.