'It's starting to get serious in a hurry': tension builds in America's Cup

Excitement is building among the racing teams of the America’s Cup ahead of racing starting in earnest on Thursday. 

Last week, the six teams battled it out in a Preliminary Regatta that served as a mini warm-up competition, but the mood among the camps is getting a lot more serious now. 

Tension was a lot more palpable in the air at a press conference on Wednesday at the World Trade Center in Barcelona compared to the equivalent media event the week before. The sailing teams are eager to get out on the water but they know that the pressure starts now. 

“It’s starting to get serious in a hurry,” as skipper of INEOS Britannia, Ben Ainslie, put it. “The Preliminary Regatta was a great opportunity to size each other up, it gave us a huge amount of learning, but now each point counts.”

Asked if he and his team were critical of themselves after committing some unforced errors during the warm-up races last week, Ainslie explained that they are "always realistic and hard on ourselves, we made ourselves look bad." He admitted his team made "some easily rectifiable mistakes, but we’ve spent a lot of time analyzing back at the base behind the scenes."

He pointed to "maneuvering" on the water and "performance in acceleration" as "critical" areas to improve on if his team are to have success in the next few months. 

“It counts now, no more practice,” echoed Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli team helmsman Jimmy Spithill.

The Preliminary Regatta was won by New Zealand, but Spithill, from the Italian runners-up, said that the competition "showed everyone had their moments, everyone won races but also made mistakes. Make too many and you’ll be punished and lose the race, everyone experienced that."

"We’re about to find out" if this is the best Luna Rossa team to ever compete at an America's Cup, Spithill said. "The beauty about sport is that it's judged on results. Every one of us here will be judged by the result, that’s all we’re focused on right now." Ahead of the new phase of the competition, he wants to "take it day by day and learn and grow stronger as the competition progresses."

Tom Slingsby, helmsman of the American Magic team, struck a similar tone in lamenting mistakes made during the Preliminary Regatta. "We had some good races and some we just weren’t good enough. We showed our potential in some races but weren’t good enough in others." 

The Americans were the only team to defeat New Zealand last week, but that still wasn't enough to qualify for the final. Still, after a "tough race" against the Italians and an admitted "breakdown" against the French, "it was easy for momentum to break down, but the win against New Zealand put us back in the mindset that we can do it. It's good to know if we sail really well we can win races against the top boats."

Arnaud Psarofaghis, skipper of the Swiss Alinghi Red Bull Racing team, knows that they need to "win as many races as we can." "We saw last week we had a good game plan but a few mistakes put us on the backfoot." The Swiss side won the first race of the regatta but failed in all of the rest of the teams.

The French Orient Express Racing Team finished bottom of the standings, but skipper Quentin Delapierre was in a positive mood nonetheless. "It’s not that frustrating, we know we don’t have as much experience around the race track, we hadn’t had the opportunity to race other boats during the campaign, so the Preliminary Regatta was unbelievable to learn as much as we can."

Showing your cards

The format of the America's Cup competition provides an interesting conundrum for the competitors - how much of their true ability and skillset do they show off against each other, and how much do they leave in their back pocket for when they need it most? 

New Zealand, as defending champions, are competing in the final of the Louis Vuitton America's Cup against the winning challenger that emerges from the other five teams, yet, they're still racing in the round robin, giving them the chance to learn about their opponents without their performance necessarily counting. 

Other teams also know that, should they qualify for the final, they may want to withhold something for when they face New Zealand there, adding up to what will surely be an interesting standoff in the coming weeks. 

Through the Preliminary Regatta and the round robin of the challenger series, everyone will be trying to figure out everyone else’s, and indeed their own, strengths and weaknesses.

Tom Slingsby, helmsman of the American Magic team, posed that New Zealand were the strongest team with certain lighter wind and wave conditions, but also admitted we "haven’t seen everyone’s cards yet." "New Zealand in the flat order south-westerlies are extremely quick, in lighter conditions they have the edge. Italy are good in all conditions. We felt good in bigger waves, but we're not sure yet." 

Jimmy Spithill, of the Italian team, acknowledged there is "a lot of risk for the challengers" in the round robin series. "We’re racing for survival," whereas New Zealand "have a massive advantage" when they get to race against everyone else, assured of their place in the final regardless.

INEOS Britannia's Ben Ainslie raised the debate of "should the defender points count?" in the round robin during the press conference. He added that it "gives the Kiwis the chance to check in on challengers, but we learn more from them than they learn from us."