The America’s Cup teams have found themselves at the mercy of Mother Nature.
Expected to be sailing in the opening day of their first preliminary regatta in Vilanova i la Geltru overnight, the crews headed back to shore early as bad weather gave race management no choice but to call the day off.
It put a big dampener on what should have been a milestone day for the America’s Cup cycle, with teams getting the chance to race against each other in a competitive setting for the first time. While they did contest some practice races earlier in the week, this morning’s three scheduled races would have been their first opportunity to race for something.
There is, however, plenty more opportunity to sail over the weekend. The regatta was set to run over three days; the first two featuring three fleet races before a third made up of two fleet races followed by the top two teams contesting a match-race final. So while they lost the first day’s action, the teams will still have five fleet races in which to earn their place in the regatta final.
It was a moment the sailors had been looking forward to. The teams are racing this weekend in the one-design AC40s - a scaled-down model of the AC75 foiling monohull - so although it will be months before we see how they really shape up for the America’s Cup proper, this weekend’s event was an important building block in terms of how communication is operating onboard in a race scenario.