Wind-blown challenge off course?
Last night, after what at the time felt a street-wise decision to beat the Bank Holiday get-away by departing at 2.15pm – events proved this a foolhardy option as said exodus had clearly begun about five hours previously – we eventually arrived at the coast to spend the weekend with my father shortly before BBC1’s News at Six.
This being an area big on sailing, it was no surprise that the topic of the moment was the opening of the main America’s Cup competition in Bermuda with Sir Ben Ainslie’s Land Rover BAR team bidding to bring the Auld Mug to Britain for the very first time in its 166 year history.
The event consists of a regatta of races between the prospective challengers, after which the current holder (Oracle Team USA) defends against the challenging ‘winner’ in a series of head-to-head clashes.
Those with an ounce of sporting interest, irrespective of whether it be of the sailing variety, will know that in the 21st Century the contest has transformed itself into a sailing equivalent of a Formula One circus combining the latest space-age technological developments with a catamaran-style chassis in which foils play a central role – at full throttle being all that connects the hull to the water – as the boat flies along at sail-powered speeds (not far short of 50 knots at full tilt) that were way beyond imagination even just twenty years ago.
As it happens, after an early meal in advance of an intended early bed-time, one of my father’s great pals and neighbours popped round about 7.30pm to pay his respects – an episode that always involves more gin & tonic and an open, free-wheeling conversation.
After bringing us up to speed with the latest village gossip our guest moved on to the America’s Cup – on which he is something of an authority, being a fine sailor of sixty years’ standing himself and possessed of a a son who spends much of his time in the Caribbean.
Yesterday, we learned, the opening round of the ‘challengers’ tournament had been postponed because (this would tend to bring an ironic smile to any sailing outsider like me) there had been too much wind going through the Bermudan Great Sounds – it was predicted at 20 to 23 knots (that’s over 25mph), a strength at which these modern feats of sailing engineering would potentially become unstable and dangerous. Only a couple of years ago the British Olympic sailor ‘Bart’ Simpson was tragically killed in a capsizing incident.
As I understand it from our conversation yesterday, wind speeds of between 10 and 16 knots give the America’s Cup boats the best chance of showing themselves off in all their glory, so the event is now scheduled to get under way at some point today (Saturday 27th May) – live coverage available upon some British sports television channel or another.
Inevitably last night at one point your author lobbed up the easy one – what did our visitor think of Ben Ainslie and the British team’s chances of bringing home the Cup?
The answer was simple and direct – “Zero”.
It was explained to me that over the past five years all the challenging teams (and the holder) had been working flat out on development and then holding a world series of races in what our visitor last night described as 70%-sized boats.
The Land Rover BAR team had been pretty successful in these contests and – on the face of it – were potentially worthy challengers. However, once the competition moved to the main event (the America’s Cup proper) about six months ago, in the full-sized ‘monster’ versions of the boats, it had immediately become apparent that Land Rover BAR were way off the pace.
The latest information was that the British team’s budget spend so far over this America’s Cup cycle had reached £110 million – of which £10 million alone had been spent in the last six months desperately trying to rectify the problems with their ‘big’ boat.
The bottom line is that they have no speed – which in sailing, of course, is the most crucial thing of all. They’ve been making significant strides during the ‘Cold War’ period of practising on site in Bermuda, but then so has every other team.
The truth (according to last night’s visitor) was that Land Rover BAR hasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of emerging victorious, especially since their opening race was against Artemis, the Swedish challenger, overseen by another British Olympic veteran Iain Percy, which is one of the favourites to become the eventual official challenger to Oracle Team USA.
Nobody should doubt the brilliance of Sir Ben Ainslie as a helmsman and sailor – nor his determination and will to win – but on this occasion, if he should steer the Land Rover BAR team through the qualifying regatta and then take the Auld Mug off the Americans, it will be the greatest competitive victory of his entire life, and that includes all his Olympic medals (four of them gold) and indeed his extraordinary contribution to Oracle Team USA’s victory – coming from eight races down to win – the last time the America’s Cup proper was staged.
… You read it here first folks!
