Ben Ainslie, Team Principal and Skipper of INEOS Britannia, has vowed that the team will “keep pushing all the way” in the 37th America’s Cup Match. The British Challenger of Record, racing for the Royal Yacht Squadron Ltd, is battling Defenders Emirates Team New Zealand and is currently 4-0 down in the first-to-seven series. The fourth race took place on Monday and it was the closest one of the Match so far.
Ainslie said: “It was a good race and we managed to get the first cross but the Kiwis are sailing really well. For us, it’s a matter of trying to figure out how we can make some of the performance gains to take it to them. We have our strong moments, but there are times where we are losing a click and I think that’s really the difference. We will keep pushing all the way, they’ve obviously had a strong start but we can come back from this.”
The pre-start had a very different flavour to Sunday’s race, with no engagement between the two AC75 race boats. Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ) led the way down to the boundary, and when they turned back up towards the start line, INEOS Britannia chose to tack around and gain separation to windward. The Kiwis were first across the line but the Brits were two knots faster, which meant they then clinched the lead. But this was just one of 10 lead changes in the first leg, showing just how close the two boats were. At the first gate, the AC75 race boats split round the mark, with New Zealand taking the right and the Brits taking the left.
INEOS Britannia entered the second leg in the lead, but after Emirates Team New Zealand found more wind on their side of the course, they managed to get ahead again. The leg was then a tale of three crosses – at the first INEOS Britannia ducked behind ETNZ, at the second the New Zealand boat just squeaked across in front of the right-of-way British boat by the narrowest of margins. At the third, ETNZ was able to gybe in front of them to take the left-hand gate off INEOS Britannia, forcing them to the right – the margin was now three seconds.
The Kiwis were able to use the upwind third leg to convert their tiny advantage at the gate into control of the race. They worked hard to push the British boat back, willing to do the extra manoeuvre to hit them at the top of the course. They chose the right-hand gate, this time the British followed them around with a gap of 13 seconds. The Kiwis managed to maintain their lead to the finish, crossing the line 23 seconds ahead of INEOS Britannia.
INEOS Britannia Co-Helm Dylan Fletcher said: “It was very close all the way round the course, especially that first leg. It’s fine margins between the two boats but we know we need to come back stronger. They’ve obviously had the data from our boat throughout the race period and now we are able to look at theirs and see where we can make those gains. We are confident we can come out and beat them and we will come out fighting on Wednesday.”
The Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup resumes with races five and six on Wednesday. UK viewers can watch it all live on TNT Sports from 13:00 BST (14:00 CEST).
