World’s top 9 AC45 crews ready for showdown at San Diego Bay: 2011 America’s Cup World Series
2011 America’s Cup World Series is returning to San Diego with the world’s top nine AC45 crews, where Racing will commence on Wednesday, November 16, on San Diego Bay waters. The competition will be close and tough as the venue holds some challenging conditions
for the sailors on water.
After the Plymouth regatta, the series has become more competitive for participants, which has made the event quite interesting.
The opening day of the AC World Series, Wednesday, will feature two competitions, the San Diego Match Racing Championship starting with three seeding fleet races and AC500 Speed Trials. The results compiled from the fleet racing will be used to formulate
the seeding list of teams for match racing pairs.
These pairs will sail in the qualifying and semi-final races in the next two days. The finals will commence on Day 3, Saturday, while on Sunday, the teams will be sailing in the San Diego Fleet Racing Championship, as well as in more speed trials.
Oracle Racing skipper, James Spithill, spoke to local media about their excitement of the event, “I think it will be a great show for all of the people watching. As a sailor, you want challenges and to push yourself and this Bay has it all. And the racing
will be right off the Piers (Broadway and Navy)… Any of the teams here can win.”
On the other hand, skipper of Artemis Racing, Terry Hutchinson, added, “The race course here deals you some tricky, shifty conditions. So you really need to sail consistently. We've been working hard the past couple of days to make ourselves better; (looking
in the mirror) is where we can make gains.”
Both, Oracle Racing Spithill and Artemis Racing finished second and third respectively, in the Port City Challenge, a sort of warm up regatta held couple of days ago. The challenge series was won by Emirates Team New Zealand, skippered by Dean Barker.
On the occasion of AC World Series returning to San Diego, Barker acknowledged that they feel great to be at San Diego. However, he has never sailed in San Diego before and is looking forward to produce some good results at the end of the series.
Top 5 podiums of Port City Challenge:
1. Emirates Team New Zealand, Dean Barker (NZL) 2, 3, 1, 7, 2, 2 = 49 points
2. ORACLE Racing Spithill, James Spithill (USA) 3, 8, 2, 5, 3, 3 = 42 points
3. Artemis Racing, Terry Hutchinson (SWE) 1, 4, 6, 9, 1, 5 = 41 points
4. Energy Team, Yann Guichard (FRA) 7, 5, 3, 4, 6, 1 = 40 points
5. ALEPH, Pierre Pennec (FRA) 8, 7, 5, 1, 5, 4 = 36 points
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