America's Cup - End of season review by Emirates Team New Zealand

by Portsmouth on 30 Nov 2015 2015 America's Cup World Series - The situation for Emirates Team New Zealand was like any other sailing event- a strong desire to go out and win the regatta.

The reality was a little different to the desire.

The crew of Glenn Ashby, Peter Burling, Ray Davies, Blair Tuke, and Guy Endean were heading out to a race course as a new team having only sailed together collectively for a handful of days on a foiling AC45 just prior to the event and against teams which had the luxury of sailing their test boats for months in advance.

Skipper Glenn Ashby explains: “For us as a sailing team going into Portsmouth we were hoping that we would be able to mix it up with the big teams that had done a lot more sailing than us. Our expectations were to sail as well as we could. In fact we were largely racing ourselves as the boat handling and manoeuvres were, and still are, such a big part of achieving a top result and getting the boats around the track in good shape. “

“For me personally, I was pleasantly surprised how close we came to winning the regatta in Portsmouth. I think the wider team involved with the event in Portsmouth did a really good job to ensure we could hit the ground running and whilst there was not much racing, we sailed and raced relatively well straight off the cuff, whilst other teams made mistakes around us.

Disappointingly the English summer put an end to a chance for Emirates Team New Zealand to make up the one placing to the top of the podium for the regatta after racing was called off due to excessive winds which effectively reduced the regatta to the previous day’s two races.