Beach Day at America’s Cup World Series

Toulon, France (September 9, 2016) – After strong winds yesterday created spectacular foiling conditions for the America’s Cup teams, today at the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series saw the Mediterranean seas around the event venue becalmed. The schedule which included practice races, and a potential keeper race, was cancelled. The series begins in earnest tomorrow and Sunday with three races planned each day. Racing begins both days at 14:30.

Selected America’s Cup Team quotes:
Franck Cammas, Skipper, Groupama Team France: “After good wind yesterday we’re a bit frustrated for us and for the public, but we haven’t completely wasted our day either. We left the coasts to find some wind and wound up in the middle of spectator boats, who definitely enjoyed the show. We then ended the day with a series of starts, which was important in order to get back into the spirit of the race, so there was value from the day.”

Nathan Outteridge, Skipper, Artemis Racing: “We weren’t very lucky with the wind today but it was good that Regatta Director Iain (Murray) was giving us the chance to do some practice starts. That allows us to work on communication, positioning, time on distance, a lot of very valuable work, but hopefully we have more wind tomorrow, more like Thursday.”

Tom Slingsby, Helmsman, ORACLE TEAM USA: “It was beautiful beach weather today, but unfortunately the wind didn’t fill in enough, so we weren’t able to get in any meaningful action. I’m playing a bit of catch up on board so it would have been nice to get more practice in, but I have to take what I can get. We did a few practice starts and even though it was very light wind, that still helps us with time on distance and communication with each other, so it’s still worth it.”

Giles Scott, Tactician, Land Rover BAR: “Today it was pretty warm out there, I took the chance to go for a swim when we got back to the mooring, but really it was pretty frustrating as were caught between two breezes. There was probably just about enough to race out to sea, but in-shore there just wasn’t enough for racing, so unfortunately we didn’t get through what we wanted today. Hopefully tomorrow we’ll get the wind speed we need and it looks like we’ll have conditions that will mean we can go racing. We’re expecting somewhere between six to ten knots, so that’ll mean we can race.”

Chris Draper, Wing Trimmer, Softbank Team Japan: “It was a bit of a shame that there wasn’t more breeze but we still got quite a bit out of the sailing. We’ve been looking at the things we’ve done well at the last few events and we’ve had some real flashes, so now we just want to put them all together. Today we managed to learn quite a lot about the starting and distributing the roles quite a lot. Dean is world renowned for being one of the best starters out there so we’ve been looking at how the rest of the team can pass on the right information to help us make the most of our starts and that’s looking like it’s working nicely.”

Ray Davies, Tactician, Emirates Team New Zealand: “It was pretty hot out there! A lot of the guys were going for swims to try and cool down but we are well used to these conditions. We come up to the Med quite a lot and it’s really good to be back. On days like today we mainly focus on practice starts, but also work on being relaxed, and then being ready to go as soon as the wind picks up. Everyone stays hydrated and we tell a few jokes on the boat to keep the atmosphere relaxed, and now we look to tomorrow when we’ll hopefully be racing with better wind.”

How to watch: Broadcast – Time converter

Event details – Scoreboard – Crew list – Facebook

Background: The Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series (ACWS) features fleet racing in one design foiling AC45 catamarans. The ACWS forms part of the 35th America’s Cup programme, with ACWS scoring contributing to the selection of the 2017 America’s Cup Challenger. Full schedule.

ACWS 2015
July 25-26: Portsmouth, UK
August 29-30: Gothenberg, Sweden
October 17-18: Bermuda

ACWS 2016
February 27-28: Muscat, Oman
May 7-8: New York, USA
June 11-12: Chicago, USA
July 23-24: Portsmouth, UK
September 10-11: Toulon, France
November 19-20: Fukuoka, Japan

Source: ACEA, Scuttlebutt