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VALENCIA - The America's Cup teams have put years into training for different winds and weather but on Sunday (NZ time) the biggest challenge was how to navigate through the wake of the massive fleet of spectator boats.
More than 800 boats, from dinghies to huge corporate hospitality super yachts, crowded on to the Mediterranean around the course for the first race between Team New Zealand and Alinghi.
The wash from all the movement out on the sea added to already choppy conditions after the summer sea breeze picked up early in the day.
"We hadn't been in that sort of washing machine for the start before," said Matt Welling, a grinder on Alinghi, which took the rare step of practising a pre-start dial-up as soon as they got out to the race course.
"We tried to get in close to the spectator fleet during the Louis Vuitton but we couldn't do pre-starts," Welling said.
As the defender of the 32nd America's Cup, Alinghi had been training off to one side while 11 crews fought it out for the right to challenge them for the Auld Mug.
Team New Zealand, on the other hand, got used to the increasing spectator boat wash during the Louis Vuitton Cup and were said to have modified their boat NZL92 to deal with choppier than expected conditions.
Official boats following the racing under the auspices of America's Cup Management are kept to strict speed limits and if they break the rules they lose their flag.
But any other boat moored around the area can sail outside the official racing zone, and often disregard speed limits, churning up huge waves of wake.
"The spectator thing is a bit of an issue," Alinghi skipper Brad Butterworth said.
Asked how ACM could reduce the chop, Butterworth shrugged his shoulders.
"Sailing at night?" he suggested.
- REUTERS
