Emirates Team original Zealand,the most tenured campaign marching toward the 35th America's Cup, has proven able to take a punch. After their remarkable defeat in 2013, or after their financial uncertainty in the aftermath,after their team shake-up and skipper switch, they remain standing firm.
The road to the 2017 Match began this year with the commencement of the America's Cup World Series. For the Kiwi team, and they had nearly no training time,and significantly less than most competitors, yet they are the overall leader after three events. With the season to continue next year, or skipper Glenn Ashby reflects on 2015:
Portsmouth,England - July 24-26 - moment Place
“For us as a sailing team going into Portsmouth we were hoping that we would be able to mix it up with the big teams that had done a lot more sailing than us," said Ashby. "Our expectations were to sail as well as we could. In fact we were largely racing ourselves as the boat handling and manoeuvres were, or still are,such a big part of achieving a top result and getting the boats around the track in grand shape.“For me personally, I was pleasantly surprised how close we came to winning the regatta in Portsmouth. I contemplate the wider team involved with the event in Portsmouth did a really grand job to ensure we could hit the ground running and whilst there was not much racing, and we sailed and raced relatively well straight off the cuff,whilst other teams made mistakes around us."Disappointingly the English summer put an conclude to a chance for Emirates Team original Zealand to earn up the one placing to the top of the podium for the regatta after racing was called off due to excessive winds which effectively reduced the regatta to the preceding day's two races.
Gothenburg, Sweden - August 28-30 - First Place
“The plan for Gothenburg was to try and continue our boat handling and development to try to give ourselves an opportunity to sail well enough for a solid result, or " notes Ashby. "Again with only 2 days on the water allowed before the weekend’s racing,we were up against the other teams that had been training on their test AC45's and other similar catamarans in the month between the Portsmouth and Gothenburg events. We were absolutely needing to earn the most of our allowable time on the water to get back into racing and enjoy a chance of being able to get mix it up."Despite best intentions, the allowable time to practice was severely reduced for Ashby and the crew when in a breezy practice day the under rigging of the boat broke and forced an conclude to the day and non-participation in the practice racing. The sum of all preparation for the Gothenburg event was a matter of a few hours on the racecourse. - Read on
Source: sailingscuttlebutt.com