Alinghi Red Bull Racing suffered a mast failure on the eve of the final America's Cup preliminary regatta. Video / America's Cup
For the challengers to Team New Zealand’s America’s Cup reign, this week marks a turning point.
This week, all six teams – defender included – will take to the water in Barcelona for the final preliminary regatta of the cycle. It will be the first time the teams have had a chance to properly race on their AC75s, with head-to-head match racing replacing the all-in AC40 fleet racing seen in the previous two preliminary regattas.
It’s a moment the campaign has been building towards, and one that holds plenty of weight in the context of what’s to come.
“You’ve got to hit the ground running with this Cup,” Ineos Britannia helmsman Sir Ben Ainslie told the Herald.
“If you’re off the pace early on, it’s going to be very, very hard to recover. There isn’t really enough time between the rounds to make any serious modifications to get back on track, so the next couple of weeks is critical.”
For the 36th America’s Cup in Auckland, two weeks separated the end of the preliminary regatta and the beginning of the round-robin stages of the challenger series.
In Barcelona, only three full days separate the two.
Ainslie’s British entry showed how much could be achieved given time during their campaign in Auckland. Referred to by some media as “a lame duck” during the preliminary regatta in Auckland, they made adjustments and progressed to the final of the challenger series without dropping a race in the round-robin segment but were ultimately beaten by Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli in the challenger series final.
Emirates Team New Zealand and Ineos Britannia during a training session in Barcelona. Photo / Ricardo Pinto, America's Cup.
“We’d always want more time, we always want more preparation, but there comes a point where you’ve got to draw a line in the sand and go racing. We’re pretty much there and I think the team’s in a good place,” Ainslie said.
“We’ve been making quite a few changes to the boat as we’ve been building up to this racing and it’s going to be fascinating to see how that plays out through this preliminary event and then into the round robins.”
While that timeline also impacts Team NZ, as they will be competing in the challenger round-robin event, it’s the five challenging teams who will feel the pressure as their campaigns depend on how they perform in that series.
As defenders, Team NZ are guaranteed a spot in the Cup match so they will not score points in the round-robin. After two cycles are complete, Team NZ and the bottom-placed challenger will drop out, leaving the other four to move into the semifinals.
Ineos Britannia will be one of the last boats to be seen in proper racing when the preliminary regatta commences this week, featuring against American Magic in the third race of the opening day.
Taking indications from what the team has seen on the water in Barcelona over the past few weeks, Ainslie anticipated this weekend’s racing to be tightly contested, though two teams had stood out for him.
“The form teams at the moment, from what we’ve seen and on the informal practice racing that we’ve had, I think are the Kiwis, as expected, Luna Rossa, as expected, and then there are a few of us other teams that are maybe slightly dark horses.
“I think we’re probably a little bit of a dark horse. The racing that we have done, we haven’t really properly lined up with anyone for various reasons, and I think we’re coming at it with a little bit of a late charge so it’ll be interesting and critical for us that that late charge is a fast one.”
America’s Cup Preliminary Regatta
Barcelona, August 23-26. Racing begins at midnight (NZ time) each day.
