America's Cup World Series - Oracle Team USA capsizes avoiding smash

by Oracle Team USA on 11 Jun 2016 It’s an exciting Friday for Oracle Team USA as the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series event gets underway in Chicago.

On the official practice race day, Oracle Team USA capsized in the final race of the afternoon, after making a quick-maneuver to avoid a collision.

“We just didn’t see Artemis Racing coming upwind at us,” explained tactician Tom Slingsby. “I’ll put my hand up for this one. We were setting up for a gybe. We went into the maneuver and then saw Artemis at the last second. Jimmy pulled the helm away so luckily we didn’t hit them. But unfortunately we capsized.

“Jimmy did the right thing by turning up although we did capsize and we came last in the race. But it’s better than having a collision and damaging two boats and not competing on the weekend.”

Watch the interview with Tom Slingsby here

It hadn’t been the best day of racing to that point for the team, which sits in second place on the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series leaderboard.

But Slingsby says he expects the team to regroup ahead of the point scoring races on the weekend.

“We didn’t sail to our abilities today,” Slingsby lamented. “We can improve. We’ll debrief well and we learn from our mistakes. Practice day done and we’ll be ready to roll tomorrow.”

Oracle Team USA wasn’t the only crew to test the fresh waters of Lake Michigan on Friday. Earlier, during a match race against Oracle Team USA, it was Emirates Team New Zealand who capsized coming out of a gybe. In both cases, all crew members were safe and accounted for and the boats were quickly righted and able to continue racing.

The large crowds on Navy Pier were very vocal in their support of the American defender of the America’s Cup.

“It’s not often you can finish 5 minutes behind the second last boat – as we did after the capsize – and cross the finish line to a cheering crowd. It’s pretty impressive,” Slingsby said.

While the focus is on the racing, the crew may be tuned in to the television on Friday evening. American talk show host Stephen Colbert filmed a segment with the team at the event in New York last month. It is scheduled to air on the show on Friday beginning at 11:35pm on the CBS network.

“It was an awesome experience in New York to spend some time with Stephen Colbert,” said skipper Jimmy Spithill, who expects to be the brunt of some jokes tonight. “I can’t wait to see the piece.”

Point scoring racing begins in the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series Chicago on Saturday at 1:30pm.

Find out where to watch click here