America's Cup World Series Land Rover BAR - Race Day 1

by Sarah Alexander on 26 Jul 2015 The first day of competition for the 35th America's Cup was a stunning mix of sunshine, breeze, huge crowds on the Portsmouth waterfront and success for the team. A fresh north-westerly wind provided marginal foiling conditions for all the teams. It put boat-handling, sail choice and tactics at a premium, and Land Rover BAR proved rock solid on all accounts.

They began their mission to bring the Cup home with a race win, and then followed that up with a stunning come-from-behind performance to finish second in the next. It leaves the team topping the overnight leaderboard, with everything to play for on Super Sunday.

Overall thoughts on the day

Skipper and Team Principal; Ben Ainslie: 'It was a great day for us to finally be racing in this America's Cup, and on home waters and in front of a home crowd here in Portsmouth. To get two solid results I'm really excited for the team and for all the spectators and the fans here and to put on a good show for them is pretty special. Couldn't ask for anything better, fantastic conditions, so many people coming out to support the team, it's just brilliant.'

Runner; David 'Freddie' Carr; 'The support in Portsmouth blew us away, there was a strong crowd out there, but we had to switch off from the shore and lock into race mode.'

Race One

Skipper and Team Principal; Ben Ainslie: 'Race number one was a tough one, we had a good start and then got a bit lost on that first downwind leg, but the guys did a great job to get the Code Zero – the downwind sail – up pretty quick, and that pulled us through. Then Giles (Scott) our tactician, really sailed well with the wind shifts and great crew work from the guys to get us into a nice lead and hold on into the finish. We're very pleased with that race win.'

Sailing Team Manager; Jono Macbeth: 'The Code Zero definitely came into play there today… We've got a pretty good feel of when we like to use it and the performance gains, we've been working quite hard over the last 11 days, learning how to sail these boats and maybe a little bit of that is starting to pay off.'

Trimmer; Nick Hutton: 'We put some time into working with the Code Zero this week. We committed very hard to going out very early in the morning when the breeze was lighter and we could do that work. No one else was out there and we knew it was going to be light and we wanted to do that work in particular. I think it comes down to the time you put into it, and what you get back.'

Race Two

Skipper and Team Principal; Ben Ainslie: 'In race two we had a really nice start, and were leading at mark one, but it's very difficult in those conditions to pick the direction to go, and we gybed and led to the right hand side downwind, but the left paid. It put us back in the fleet again, and the guys dug really deep to pull us through again for a first and a second on the day, we're very happy with that.'

Runner; David 'Freddie' Carr: 'Tactically this one was very hard for Giles and Ben, they got us a good start but then we found ourselves at the back of the fleet and it's very easy to panic when you find yourselves in fifth and sixth. But, we sailed smart and worked on our boat handling and we have put ourselves into a good place for tomorrow – that's when the real work starts, it's super Sunday, double points and what we have been training so hard for over the past six months.'


Standings (after two races):

1. Land Rover BAR - 19 points
2. Emirates Team New Zealand - 18 points
3. Oracle Team USA - 16 points
4. Groupama Team France - 13 points
5. SoftBank Team Japan - 13 points
6. Artemis Racing - 11 points

Land Rover BAR Portsmouth line up:

• Ben Ainslie - Skipper and Team Principal
• Paul Campbell-James ¬- Wing trimmer
• David 'Freddie' Carr - Runner
• Nick Hutton - Trimmer
• Giles Scott - Bow/tactician
• Jono Macbeth - Sailing Team Manager
• Andy Mclean - Race crew reserve
• Ian McCabe - Shore support
• Ian Pattison - Shore support
• Richy O'Farrell - Shore support
• Jo Lees - Boat Captain
• Rob Wilson - Coach
• Jessica Sweeney - Chief Meteorologist
• Ben Williams - Strength and Conditioning Coach
• Matt Cornwell - Analytical Support
• Bleddyn Mon - Analytical Support