Artemis Racing Predictions With Nathan Outteridge

San Francisco, CA (July 31, 2013) – AC UNCUT’s Genny Tulloch catches up with Artemis Racing’s helmsman Nathan Outteridge on the team’s performance so far on their new AC72 Big Blue. Artemis Racing lined up with ORACLE TEAM USA on the America’s Cup racecourse and the Swedish team was pleased with their sailing given the few days they have been on the water. Given the steep learning curve of the AC72 Artemis Racing is looking impressive.

AC UNCUT: I saw Artemis out there yesterday and it looked really good. What are you thinking of Artemis’ performance?

NO: It was nice, we got out onto the race course which was day 5 sailing for us. Oracle happened to be on the racecourse so we got to a few laps on our own then we ended lining up with them doing a couple of upwind and downwinders. We were pretty surpriseed with how close we were. We knew we were going to be really off the pace with only 5 days sailing but we were just happy that we were managing to stay inside the boundaries getting around the course, we were going pretty good.

AC UNCUT: Semis start next Tuesday August 6, what do you think realistically of your chances right now?

NO: We’re pretty happy with how our performance is going – we’d like another 50 to 100 days of training for sure (LOL). We’re pretty rust and we’ve got a lot of improving to do but at the moment our learning curve has been really steep. Today we’re going to get on the race course and get an idea of how fast we’re actually going around the course. We’ll have a better indication of how we’re looking by the end of today but I think we’re still a fair way behind Luna Rossa. We still have a lot of catching up to do and only 6 more days of training.

AC UNCUT: Do you think 6 days is enough?

NO: No! I don’t think 6 days is enough to be honest. I think it’s pretty impressive that we were out in 16 knots yesterday and we’re going upwind, downwind, bearaways, roundups, foiling the whole way downwind and everyone on the team is shocked at how well we’re doing. To be honest, I’m shocked at how well we’re doing. We have to keep our expectations realistic. You can’t expect to beat Luna Rossa with 6 days of training under your belt. I guess our job as a sailing team is to keep trying to progress as fast as we can. We know we have a few maintenance days between now and then so we’re not going to get every day on the water. These things are quite nice to sail when the air is stable but as soon as it gets puffy or it starts to ebb, it gets quite difficult so I’d prefer 17 knots of breeze and no gusts or shifts!

Watch Interview