A pre-start penalty and light winds dominated Race Day 2 of the 37th America’s Cup Match between INEOS Britannia and Defenders Emirates Team New Zealand in Barcelona.
The day ended with only one of the two scheduled races taking place, as racing was abandoned due to the breeze dropping below the minimum limit. Race 4 is now rescheduled for Monday 14 October.
The first race of the day was won by the Kiwis after Ineos Britannia was dealt a penalty following an obviously well practiced maneuver by Emirates Team New Zealand in the pre-start.
INEOS Britannia had sailed into the box on port gybe before executing something of a trademark move – heading up after crossing the incoming Kiwi boat’s bow before tacking around above the start line to try to get on their rival’s stern.
However, as the British came down below the line on port gybe they were confronted by Emirates Team New Zealand coming directly at them on starboard – and as the right-of-way boat.
As the gauge between the boats quickly closed INEOS Britannia were required to give room, but they were late to do so, and the yachts got so close that their foils were overlapped.
Both boats protested before Chief Umpire Richard Slater penalised the British team with a ‘get-back’ penalty of 75 metres.
Despite expending the penalty quickly by giving up the necessary distance after the start, the Ineos Britannia helmsmen Ben Ainslie and Dylan Fletcher would have known, even at that early stage, that this would be a hard race to get back into . . . and that’s how it played out with Emirates Team NZ extending away to a 52 sec win.
Emirates Team New Zealand now have a 3 – 0 win lead in the first-to-seven race series
Ineos Britannia Team Principal and Skipper Ben Ainslie said:
“That was a tough call, we felt like we were keeping clear but obviously the umpires didn’t see it that way. We knew there was no point dwelling on it, we took it on the chin and focused on the rest of the race.”
“I don’t think we’ve sailed at our highest level yet, but I have no doubt in our team. We have the resilience and the determination to find that performance and come back stronger. We’ve already shown we can do that across this competition and we will continue pushing hard.”
Nathan Outteridge, port helmsman for Emirates Team NZ was pleased with how the series was unfolding, saying:
“Obviously we’re pretty happy with the performance of the boat. We looked at the performance yesterday and saw that we were making gains in the tacks, so we thought we would play that game again today.”
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