TeamOrigin finish third

But a top experience for the British America's Cup on their first Cup boat outing at the CNEV Annual Regatta

The final day of the CNEV regatta saw some of the closest racing yet. The results were not much different than the previous day with Alinghi gaining two more firsts and Luna Rossa two more seconds and the Spanish and TeamOrigin with a third and fourth each, but the action was closer than before and the four teams had some close battles.

Mike Sanderson, Team Director, commented as he stepped off the boat: “How fantastic was that, we still had a chance at second place overall going into the last race, I am so happy with the results given this early stage. We have a great bunch of guys, who all enjoy sailing together, our aim is to win the America’s Cup and that is not done in an instant but for sure over the next few years we are going to win plenty of races and have a great time doing it!”

Ben Ainslie, Skipper and Helmsman, added “Another good day on the water, different conditions again so all good practise for us. I particularly want to thank Desafio Español and Alinghi for helping to make this happen for us, I am really pleased with how things have gone this week.”

Race 5

Day three experienced a shorter delay with race 5 getting underway at 1340. For the first start of the day, TeamOrigin had an impressive start, one in from the committee boat with good speed. Alinghi tacked off and TeamOrigin and the Spanish took to the left side of the beat. Alinghi looked high and fast on right hand side of the beat but it was Luna Rossa who were first at the top windward mark, then Alinghi followed by TeamOrigin in 3rd position.

Downwind, TeamOrigin seemed to find some speed and closed the gap on the front two. Luna Rossa lost out to Alinghi’s superior speed and by the leeward gate, Alinghi had pulled ahead to 1st place.

The second beat saw some close tacking but no place changes and all rounded the 2nd windward mark in the same positions. TeamOrigin hoisted but had a retriever line caught up, they sorted this out quickly and continued to move downwind with good pace.

The fleet crossed the line in the same positions, with the Spanish losing out on distance to TeamOrigin.

Race 5 results:

1st Alinghi
2nd Luna Rossa
3rd TeamOrigin
4th Luna Rossa

Race 6

The final race got started just after 3pm with a slightly fresher breeze. TeamOrigin again had a good start, second in from the committee boat but on the line and with pace. Luna Rossa tacked off first and on the first cross, TeamOrigin were just slightly behind Alinghi but very close. The Spanish tacked under Luna Rossa and all four teams stayed in very close contact all the way to the windward mark where the order of rounding was Alinghi 1st, Luna Rossa 2nd, the Spanish 3rd and TeamOrigin shooting the mark for a close 4th place.

Downwind the pack stayed in close contact but with no place changes and so the leeward gate rounding followed suit, TeamOrigin threw in a dummy tack against the Spanish and they headed up the final beat of the day. Luna Rossa kept very good pace with Alinghi and they rounded the final windward mark in close proximity.

On the final downwind, TeamOrigin suffered a broken spinnaker halyard so did a quick spinnaker replacement and lost out some ground to the Spanish ending up in 4th place for that race, but securing the third place overall – a great result for such a new team.


Race 6 results:
1st : Alinghi
2nd : Luna Rossa
3rd : Desafio Espanol
4th : TeamOrigin

Overall results after 6 races:
1st: Alinghi – 3rd; 1st; 1st; 1st, 1st, 1st = 8 points ; 5 points after discard
2nd: Luna Rossa – 2nd; 4th; 2nd; 2nd, 2nd, 2nd = 14 points; 10 points after discard
3rd: TeamOrigin – 1st; 3rd; 4th; 3rd, 3rd, 4th = 18 points; 14 points after discard
4th : Desafio Espanol – 4th; 2nd; 3rd; 4th, 4th, 3rd = 20 points; 16 points after discard