Monday, July 25, 2016

America's Cup World Series: the Competition

So how did the competitors in America's Cup World Series (ACWS) compare since its last visit to Portsmouth?

Last year it was Team New Zealand that impressed, but this time it felt more like a two-boat race between Jimmy Spithill (above) and Ben Ainslie (see yesterday's post).
Dean Barker's SoftBank had improved while Team New Zealand slipped back. After racing, TNZ was one of the first to head back to base rather than doing a few more celebratory sail-bys, as were Oracle and BAR:
At the back there tended to be Groupama and Artemis:
In each race the first to the first mark also won the race, with no changes in the leader and the second place boat always playing catch-up.

Conditions were good, with enough breeze to get all teams up on their foils.


at

4 comments:

  1. Steve-the-Wargamer11:37 am

    I thought -

    ~ the first over the line has an almost unassailable lead (which tallies with your first to the mark comment)
    ~ the French did really well on day one and then lost it
    ~ Artemis were all over the place
    ~ the Kiwis were curiously lacklustre - suffering overly from Olympic withdrawals?

    ReplyDelete
  2. JP12:29 pm

    That sounds about right. Where did you watch from?

    I wonder if the Kiwis have Dean Barker regret?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Steve-the-Wargamer3:49 pm

    We were there on the Saturday in the spectator mooring area, on Sunday I watched on BT Sport...

    I get the constant feeling Dean Barker is frustrated with the hand he's been dealt... on the face of it the boat should be competitive, but it isn't, though it is getting better....

    ReplyDelete
  4. JP4:07 pm

    I was busy Saturday so only saw a YouTube summary but Sunday was in a RIB around the start end of the course

    There was an hour of the ACWS on the BBC at 13:45 today - should be on iPlayer. Works quite well on TV with the on-board camera's and overlays of course and position information.

    ReplyDelete