INEOS Team UK move to warmer climes

INEOS Team UK were completing the removal of Britannia and the team RIBS from their Portsmouth HQ Monday morning.

With their first AC75, Britannia, now on her way to Sardinia to relocate to the teams temporary base there, and continue testing and training in the warmer waters of the Gulf of Cagliari.

Ben Ainslie’s INEOS Team UK expect to resume sailing in January at their Cagliari base, where they will prepare for the first event of the America’s Cup World Series circuit.

Cagliari is the home base of the America’s Cup 36 Challenger of Record, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, and will be the venue for the first event of the ACWS circuit, from April 18 – 26, 2020.

The teams are not allowed to train together, so this close proximity will be an interesting situation. The other two (possibly 3) AC teams will join them in the New Year.

The only other AC75 pre-cup event scheduled to date is the Christmas Race for 10 to 20 December 2020 in Auckland, New Zealand, and any other events have to be announced by the end of this November.

The other likely venues seem to have reduced to Portsmouth, UK, in June 2020, when the British team hope for a repeat of the successful events they staged for the 35th AC.

With no ACWS events seeming likely in the USA, it is now being suggested that there will be another event in Auckland before the Christmas race. We will have to wait and see what is finally announced at the end of November.

Also hanging in the breeze is the rumoured tie-up of the INEOS AC team with the British SailGP team.

Denied to me by the Ainslie team but according to SailGP this is still in discussion!

America’s Cup – Luna Rossa come out of the shadows

Grant Simmer gives the low-down on the British AC36 campaign so far