Ainslie steers Britain into America’s Cup contention

Portsmouth (United Kingdom) (AFP) – Ben Ainslie thrust Britain’s America’s Cup campaign into serious contention for the 35th Cup in 2017 when Landrover BAR dominated racing on the first day of the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series in Portsmouth on Saturday.

Winning two out of the three races, both in light winds, Ainslie showed audacity and opportunism in his tactics and familiarity with the Solent race track, where his team trains on a daily basis, to seize consecutive victories in the second and third races.

But it was Franck Cammas’ Groupama Team France who gave the British a run for the money with an emphatic win by almost two minutes in the first race and consistently won the starts to prove that France too are a team to reckon with for next year’s America’s Cup.

One of the biggest crowds Portsmouth has seen for a sporting event turned out to lend their support to the British campaign and gave every successful manoeuvre a rousing cheer, to raise hopes that Britain might win the Cup for the first time.

When Ainslie forced his way through the fleet in the final race to head for the right hand side of the course, he hooked into some breeze that immediately put three knots onto their speed to go into the lead which saw the crowd erupt into enthusiastic applause.

By the end of the three races, Groupama Team France and Landrover BAR were tied at the top on 26 points each though it was Ainslie who was leading by virtue of his winning two races to Cammas’ one.

Cammas had only recorded two race wins in total since starting out on the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup Series at Portsmouth in 2015 and his injury last year, where he broke his leg while racing GC32s, put a serious delay on their progress in the foiling AC45s.

Light shifting winds made for tricky conditions in the Solent with the fleet finding itself parked up at the marks and across the wind holes and with a forecast for fresher breeze on Sunda and double points up for grabs, the outcome remains wide open.