America's Cup World Series - Artemis Racing victorious in Venice

by Artemis Racing on 21 May 2012 At the America’s Cup World Series Venice, light air, plenty of current and countless lead changes, made for dramatic racing for the thousands of spectators who lined the race course for the final day. Having defeated Energy Team in the Match Racing Semi-Finals yesterday, Artemis lined up against Luna Rossa - Piranha for the Finals.

The Italians battled and kept the pressure on, but were unable to defeat Artemis who maintain their position at the top of the ACWS Match Racing leaderboard after the five World Series events.

'We executed exactly what we planned to do in the pre-start. We wanted to dial up Luna Rossa and get them to commit to starboard, then bear off onto port to deploy,' said Skipper Terry Hutchinson. 'It couldn’t have gone better, but it was a tricky race. On the first run we split at the top, it was touch and go, but we snuck across and stuck to our convictions on the second beat. Luna Rossa kept asking the question and our guys kept responding.'

'We had a good result in Naples and now here, in quite different conditions. The nice thing about the match racing at these regattas is that we've executed our game plan. We're starting to feel that the training is paying off for us.'

The Super Sunday fleet race followed and France's Energy Team dominated, while the rest of the fleet shuffled for position. Artemis Racing and Luna Rossa – Piranha were both over early at the start, but Terry and the team battled their way back to third place for a podium finish.

'It was a big, eight-car pile-up at the first corner. We were sailing to win today, over a little early on the start, but the guys did great work to get us back in. Some great gybes down the first run. We got out of sync with the fleet, and that allowed us back into the race,' said Terry. 'Yesterday was disappointing, but we debriefed it intensely. It was nice to come back today and sail in the way that we know how to sail. It was a really good team day.'

The team now returns to Valencia to continue training with the AC72 wing before the next ACWS event in Newport from 27 June – 1 July.

Artemis Racing website
America's Cup website