Spithill reveals America’s Cup injury

An elbow injury he kept secret as he orchestrated last year’s America’s Cup victory has ended James Spithill’s quest to compete in the 70th Sydney to Hobart.

Australia’s only two-time America’s Cup-winning skipper was offered a ride south in the famous ocean classic by the first man who gave him a Cup sailing job – Syd Fischer on Ragamuffin.

But unable to put off surgery to his arm any longer, Spithill will watch from the shore when veteran skipper Fischer and his team on the 100-footer Ragamuffin set sail on Boxing Day.

Fischer is a five-time America’s Cup campaigner who plucked Spithill from obscurity as a teenager to skipper his Young Australia campaign.

Fischer’s rebuilt Ragamuffin is one of five 100-footers in this year’s race to Hobart and one of the favourites to claim the coveted line honours in the 628 nautical mile race south.

Spithill’s elbow injury means he will miss another regatta – the World Moth Championships in Victoria in the New Year.

“I laugh when people talk about the fingertip control during the America’s Cup,’’ said Spithill, who this year became only the third Australian to be anointed World Sailor of the Year.

“I tore tendons in my elbow before the America’s Cup but we kept it quiet. During the regatta I had cortisone shots.’’

About 188 yachts will be on the start line December 26 of this year’s Rolex Sydney to Hobart, including the American raider Comanche, one of the newest and most technologically advanced supermaxis in the world.

Source: The Daily Telegraph