Cascais AC World Series Preliminaries

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Top Teams Tangle in Cascais On First Day of Match Racing Championship

(August 10, 2011) Emirates Team New Zealand is setting a torrid pace at the Cascais AC Match Race Championship, the third stage of the AC World Series competition, leading after the first day of the series.

Following a two-hour postponement due to unusually light and fickle winds in Cascais, the three seeding fleet races were packed with thrills and spills, the most dramatic of which was a start line collision between ORACLE Racing Coutts and the Kiwis.

The day would culminate with a one-on-one duel between the Emirates team and the American defender, ORACLE Racing Spithill – the first match race of the America’s Cup World Series. At stake was top spot on the day, and the race didn’t disappoint with the lead passing back and forth until late in the match.

Barker, the Kiwi skipper, stormed away off the starting line to lead at the first mark, only to see the American team find a shift on the opposite side of the race course. By the bottom gate, ETNZ was in the lead again. But approaching the halfway point of the race, there was an important cross between the two boats, which resulted in a classic match racing set piece, giving the advantage back to Spithill.

The ping-pong battle continued on the second lap of the course until Emirates Team New Zealand was able to hook into a favorable wind shift and finally shake the ORACLE Racing boat for good. The Kiwis would end the afternoon with top points on the day, with Spithill settling for second place.

“The guys on board are doing a fantastic job on crewing,” Barker said. “Yes, you make mistakes and it’s frustrating that you make them… And not that you are afraid, but these boats are very, very, hard on the crew. But there is an improvement since Auckland, we are getting more comfortable in the multihull environment which is an improvement.”

The three seeding fleet races were no less exciting than the final match. Team Korea continues to impress, finishing the day ranked third, while France’s Energy Team is fourth.

"The best bit of the day was our first race where we had two penalties on the first downwind and sailed a really good second downwind to get back into the race,” said Chris Draper the Korean skipper. “While the other races were really good, that was probably the highlight of the day.”

The big collision between Coutts and Barker came in the pre-start of the second race, when Cup-legend Coutts tried to box the Emirates team out of the start line. But his move was too aggressive and resulted in a collision and a penalty to the ORACLE Racing squad: “It put a lot of pressure on the skin… We’ll have to repair it tonight and be ready for tomorrow,” Barker said. Cascais AC Match Race Championship – Seeding points
Place Team Day One Points

1 Emirates Team New Zealand 10
2 ORACLE Racing Spithill 9
3 Team Korea 8
4 Energy Team 7
5 Artemis Racing 6
6 ORACLE Racing Coutts 5
7 Aleph 4
8 China Team 3
9 Green Comm Racing 3

Match Race Results
Emirates Team New Zealand beat ORACLE Racing Spithill: 1-0
Seeding Fleet Race Results
Place Team RACE #1 RACE #2 RACE #3 TOTAL POINTS
Place Points Place Points Place Points
1 Emirates Team New Zealand 2 9 4 7 1 10 26
2 ORACLE Racing Spithill 1 10 2 9 4 7 26
3 Team Korea 6 5 3 8 2 9 22
4 Energy Team 3 8 5 6 3 8 22
5 Artemis Racing 7 4 1 10 6 5 19
6 ORACLE Racing Coutts 9 3 7 4 5 6 13
7 Aleph 5 6 9 3 7 4 13
8 China Team 4 7 8 3 8 3 13
9 Green Comm Racing 8 3 6 5 9 3 11

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Kiwis Rolling Over the Competition

(August 11, 2011) Emirates Team New Zealand is quickly becoming the star of the show at the America’s Cup World Series – Cascais. For the second consecutive day, the Kiwis earned maximum points, after beating Artemis Racing in a match racing duel for first place to conclude a full day of racing.

The Emirates team picked up where they left off yesterday, winning two of the three fleet races to qualify at the top of the pile for the match racing final. Then, they beat the Artemis Racing crew handily, when the Swedish team accumulated a series of penalties around the race course.

“It’s very satisfying for us to feel like we are really improving and starting to get more and more to grips with the multihulls,” said a very understated Dean Barker, the New Zealand skipper, when he returned to the dock.

Emirates Team New Zealand is quickly becoming the star of the show at the America’s Cup World Series – Cascais. For the second consecutive day, the Kiwis earned maximum points, after beating Artemis Racing in a match racing duel for first place to conclude a full day of racing.

The Emirates team picked up where they left off yesterday, winning two of the three fleet races to qualify at the top of the pile for the match racing final. Then, they beat the Artemis Racing crew handily, when the Swedish team accumulated a series of penalties around the race course.

“It’s very satisfying for us to feel like we are really improving and starting to get more and more to grips with the multihulls,” said a very understated Dean Barker, the New Zealand skipper, when he returned to the dock.

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Sensational six qualify for Match Race Championship

(August 12, 2011) Six teams have qualified for the Cascais AC Match Race Championship on Saturday, following a day of close, compelling competition on the waters off Cascais.

On Friday, James Spithill and his ORACLE Racing crew won all three fleet races, but their good work was undone in the ‘all or nothing’ match race for first place, when Emirates Team New Zealand made a pass on the second lap of the course to secure the match, and victory on the day. It was the third consecutive day of scoring maximum points for the Kiwis, who now proceed directly to Saturday’s semi finals.

“It starts again tomorrow,” Barker said. “The last three days don't matter too much. We've learned a lot in both match racing and the fleet racing. It hasn't been smooth, these boats are challenging to sail well and if you make a mistake you get penalized badly, so it will be case of minimizing mistakes to keep sailing around the track.”

Spithill’s disappointment at losing the match race will be tempered by his second place seeding heading into Saturday; he also earns a bye into the semi finals.

“These have been some of the best match races I’ve ever done,” Spithill said. “It’s physical, and with the onboard footage, I think people watching are getting a real understanding of how high-pressure these decisions are and how hard it is. And I think that’s great.”

Four teams will be fighting on Saturday for the other two semi final positions. Sixth placed Energy Team will take on third placed Artemis Racing, while ORACLE Racing Coutts faces off against Team Korea. Both matches are ‘sudden death’ with the winner advancing to the semis and loser going home.

“We are really happy to learn and very happy to make the cut - the be in the top six and to be match racing tomorrow,” said Energy Team skipper Loick Peyron. “It’s a chance to race against the best.”

“We’ve been over the moon with how we’ve been sailing,” said his counterpart with Team Korea, Chris Draper. “We still feel we’re making some silly mistakes… I think we could have had a couple of top three finishes today, but it’s a whole new game and we’re really pleased with how it’s been going so far.”

The bottom three teams on the leaderboard following Friday’s racing – Green Comm Racing, Aleph and China Team – will not be competing on Saturday.

But they will return to competition on Sunday with the AC World Series – Cascais Championship, a winner takes all fleet race that will determine the winner of the first stage on this new global professional circuit.

The AC World Series continues with events in Plymouth, England in September and San Diego, California in November. And today, it was announced that Newport, Rhode Island will host the closing event of the 2011-12 AC World Series, from June 23 to July 1, 2012.

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(August 13, 2011) James Spithill and his ORACLE Racing crew swept aside the previously ascendant Emirates Team New Zealand to win the Cascais AC Match Race Championship on Saturday, as the AC World Series Cascais enters the final weekend of racing.

Many of the matches featured close starts, blazing speed runs to the first turning mark and early passing lanes. With the race course boundaries crowded by spectator boats, Spithill and his crew sailed near flawless races on Saturday, with good starts, strong crew work, and winning decision-making.

“I feel like we’ve ramped up as we’ve gone through the week,” Spithill said, after the victory. “We’ve peaked at the right time. I’m very happy. It feels fantastic.”

For Emirates Team New Zealand it was a disappointing day, after the team dominated the competition to this point.

“Like any day there’s a list of things you can do a lot better, we have a lot of improvement left to make and things to develop,” Barker said. “We’re looking for an improvement tomorrow…”

Artemis Racing was forced to settle for third place after withdrawing from their Semi Final against Spithill when their giant gennaker sail came tumbling down on deck before it could be furled. Rather than risk more damage to the equipment, skipper Terry Hutchinson made the wise decision to pull out of the race.

“We had a little bit of an issue in which the gennaker came down and it was quickly going to start doing a lot of damage to the boat so we took the decision of retire and protect the asset,” Hutchinson explained. “But we did a lot of things really, really, well.”

In fourth place was a very happy Team Korea. Chris Draper and his crew opened the day with a win over ORACLE Racing Coutts, to make it into the semis.

“We’re over the moon to finish where we have,” Draper said. “It’s surpassed our expectations. We were very pleased to have beaten Russell Coutts, so it was a bit difficult to control our emotions, but we’re over the moon.”

The top three teams were celebrated in a podium ceremony following the last match, where winning skipper James Spithill was presented with a Louis Vuitton Watch by Yves Carcelle, the Chairman and CEO of Louis Vuitton.

On Sunday, the focus shifts back to fleet racing. All nine teams will be on the water for the AC World Series Cascais Championship, a winner-takes-all, single fleet race, for ranking points that will carry forward throughout the America’s Cup World Series. Start time is 1500 local time (GMT+1).

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Emirates Team New Zealand claim the first AC World Series

(August 14, 2011) Emirates Team New Zealand made an incredible recovery during the ‘winner takes all’ fleet race on Sunday to win the America’s Cup World Series Cascais, the first event of a new global series leading up to San Francisco in 2013.

With nine boats on the start line, the competition was close, and with a tricky, patchy race course area, there were passing lanes throughout the day. ORACLE Racing Spithill jumped out to a convincing lead early, but couldn’t protect it. On the second lap of the race course, Kiwi skipper Dean Barker found more wind on his side of the race course to make the pass.

“For us it was fantastic,” Barker said. “It was always going to be a very difficult race, as the breeze never really established. There were big ‘holes’ in the race course, so it was about being at the right place at the right time.”

Artemis Racing, too, was able to work its way up to a second place finish from being back in the pack early; the early leader, ORACLE Racing Spithill, was forced to settle for third.

“The guys did an awesome job to battle us up into the race,” said Artemis Racing skipper Terry Hutchinson, after a day where he climbed back from mid-fleet to second place. “It’s probably the best we’ve gone in the entire regatta. It's a very good finish for Artemis.”

But the feel-good story came from the Spanish Green Comm Racing. From a position of dead last early in the race, Vasilij Zbogar and his crew of dinghy champions began picking off the opposition on the final leg of the race to earn a fifth place finish, an incredible achievement for the novice crew.

“It's a fantastic day for the team, we were last to arrive, and were very last for the first three races, then we have been improving every day,” he said. “We were eighth, then seventh, sixth and now fifth. Today the spirit of the team showed more than ever – we never give up. We fight to the end. Today, we are happy with our improvement, but still not happy with the result. We are a team of winners, so we won’t be happy until we win.”

Making its debut along with the AC45 catamaran was the new Guest Racer program – where each team takes a privileged guest aboard its race boat. The list of guest racers this week included VIP guests like Yves Carcelle, the Chairman and CEO of Louis Vuitton, pop singer Little Boots, Cecilia Meireles, the Secretary of State for Tourism in Portugal, along with names more familiar to the sailing world like former Cup winner John Bertrand, Artemis Racing CEO Paul Cayard and team principal Torbjorn Tornqvist, as well as ORACLE Racing founder and principal Larry Ellison, who was aboard ORACLE Racing Spithill today.

“We had a great start but both Artemis and Team New Zealand managed to pass us and that's what these boats are all about,” Ellison said following the race. “It makes the sailing much more exciting; it's not a matter of ‘you win the start, you win the race’. So it's just what we hoped for when we decided on multihulls for the next America's Cup… It's really competitive and that's what people want to see. They want to see close races and the best sailors in the fastest boats.”

The America’s Cup World Series now moves on to Plymouth, UK, where the same nine teams will compete from September 10-18, before moving to San Diego, California in November.