The second day of official practice racing but only ETNZ and Luna Rossa made it onto the water.
Ben Ainslie’s Ineos Team UK and the American Magic team decide to give it a miss.
This was the second missed day for the Brits, who pulled out with a broken main halyard early on the first day, but as that would have been a simple fix, the reason for their no show on Thursday is not known.
But, it is all beginning to look depressingly familiar to British Cup fans . . .
Similarly for the American team – now officially the only USA entry – the reason for non-appearance is not known.
The practice days are run by the 36th America’s Cup race management as an opportunity to test the entire network of systems needed to successfully run and broadcast an AC36 race.
So maybe the two teams have more pressing problems to fix before the first proper racing in next week’s four day ACWS/Christmas Cup event.
Above is a video by Vittorio d’Albertas and Pietro Pinucci who discuss the day 1 performance of the three teams that took part – Ineos Team UK having pulled out.
They do add some reasonable comments as the Kiwi media gets excited over the performance of ETNZ, who continue to look the best prepared team at this stage.
The ACWS/Christmas Cup event kicks off on Thursday 17 December and although this will be the real thing, it is anybody’s guess as to how seriously the teams will take it.
Nervous times for British fans as the two missed practice days seem to point to unsolved problems for the Ineos team.
One case in point were the foils, where they were back sailing with straight anhedral foils on both sides.
Related Post:
America’s Cup – First day of Practice Racing goes all wrong for Brits
