GBR Challenge diary 2

Helmsman Andy Beadsworth describes the average day and what they've broken so far...

Well, the waiting and speculation is over. Britain's return to the America's Cup is reality. Fantastic! After years of effort, speculation and rumouring we are now entered as a challenger into the America's Cup 2003. We own three ACC boats and the required infrastructure to run and crew them, and last week started sailing two boats. The third is being worked on presently and should be on the water in the near future. Thank you, Peter Harrison.
It was a big day when we launched our second boat and sailed our two IACC boats together in the Solent - an awesome experience and a pretty fantastic sight as summer arrived that day, especially as it appeared only for a day. We enjoyed building breezes from five to 16 knots by the end of the day. The Solent was alive, with two giant IACC boats being chased by RIBs full of journos, TV crews, photographers and PR specialists. Quite spectacular. It would have been nice to have had the opportunity to stand back and see it from afar, but unfortunately it was all on at the helm that day - not that it hasn't been every time we've been out (and it's probably the easiest job on the boat).

The first day with two boats meant a whole influx of new personnel who had not sailed IACC boats before, or probably anything like it. Those of us that had were split between the two boats. (Remember that even those who have had some experience have relatively little - maybe only sailing on the boats ten times and then only with one boat, practising and trying to learn manoeuvres. There's still lots to learn for all of us.) The level of conversation on board was high with lots of tuition and questioning going on. On top of that it was necessary to co-ordinate manoeuvres as well as to keep the two boats racing together. Who said anything about competition!!!


With rubber boats coming alongside as we were sailing full speed, spinnakers set, sort of racing against the other boat to get TV footage, interviews being conducted while we were on the go, trying to convey instructions as to what we were going to do and where we were going to go. The Solent is a small piece of water when you draw four metres and are charging along at ten to 12 knots with a spinnaker set. It's not long before land or a hidden bank comes at you and it is not an option to run these boats aground. They are pretty fragile and by no means easy or cheap to repair. It takes the co-ordination of all 16 crew on board to get the spinnaker down and turn back upwind in a relatively tidy fashion. However the day was a huge success, everybody doing their jobs well, some great footage, with lots of interviews and both boats back and hoisted out ashore with no breakages.

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