In the latest edition of her Podcast series, Shirley Robertson talks with the members of the America’s Cup media team and key players from the challenger teams.
This is a two-part edition . . . In the first part (Ep17) Shirley discusses with fellow media team members, Nathen Outteridge and Ken Read, the outcome of the first racing event for the AC75 class, the ACWS event.
In the second podcast (Ep18) Shirly talks with some key players from each of three challenger teams.
New York YC American Magic Skipper Terry Hutchinson, Luna Rossa helmsman Francesso Bruni and INEOS Team UK Skipper Sir Ben Ainslie.
For British fans this is the first chance to hear from the Ineos team Skipper following their bottom place finish in their first competitive event.
Ainslie admits (from around 35min in Ep18) that they are clearly not happy with the performance of Britannia (RB2), and that they are not where they wanted to be.
He accepted that some new problems were raised in that event regards reliability and performance.
Issues, they had been working on for some time, but some were new areas (reliability) and that there was not much time to resolve those key areas.
Ainslie does not offer any clue to these problems or how, or even if they can be resolved.
Interestingly in an earlier Ineos Team video, made immediately after the recent Christmas Race fiasco . . .
Ineos CEO Grant Simmer admitted that they had known about their ‘issue with the lighter air and take off’ and that they were starting work on that.
Why they waited until after the ACWS event if they already knew about the issue is strange, but presumably that is now fixed, and following their recent quick sail, they are now back in the boatshed working on the other problems!
But it does have the depressing sound of Deja vu.
Of when the British team arrived in Bermuda for the 35th America’s Cup knowing that they were off the pace and facing complete humiliation.
Ainslie said after they went out in the semi-final stage:
“We were struggling in some conditions, certainly in the light airs. We were able to address that to an extent.”
“Ultimately we didn’t quite get there in time but it was not through lack of effort.”
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