Hamilton, Bermuda (May 31, 2017) – Mother Nature has proved that she is the only force that can beat the collective might of the America’s Cup teams. She delayed day one of racing with excessive winds, and she returned today with winds that proved to be too light.
An announcement today by the America’s Cup Event Authority (ACEA) and America’s Cup Race Management (ACRM) confirmed that the four scheduled Round Robin 2 Louis Vuitton America’s Cup Qualifiers races planned today would have to wait until tomorrow. When velocity is outside the 6 to 24 knot wind range, racing is postponed, which has thus far occurred on two of the six scheduled race days.
“It is obviously not ideal that we have to postpone races, but that is precisely why we have spare race days in the schedule,” said Iain Murray, ACRM Regatta Director.
“Mother Nature is fickle, it is as simple as that, and since time immemorial sailors have had to contend with light and strong winds,” noted Murray. “After four fabulous days of perfect conditions, today was our turn to deal with the light winds, I am, though, confident we will be back racing tomorrow.”
The second round robin tries again tomorrow at 2:00 pm (local time) with four matches scheduled: Japan vs France, Great Britain vs New Zealand, USA vs Japan, and France vs Great Britain. The forecast shows a bit more promise (southwest at 4-8 knots), then backing south as it increases to 8–12 knots later in the day/evening.
America’s Cup Qualifiers: From May 27 to June 3, all six America’s Cup teams – yes, that includes the Defender – will compete in a double round robin match race series where each competitor races every other team twice – a total of ten races each. Wins earn one point, and the four Challengers with the most points advance to the next round. As the top two teams from the 2015-16 America’s Cup World Series, Land Rover BAR and Oracle Team USA gained an advantage of 2 points and 1 point respectively going into the AC Qualifiers.
Overall Standings
ORACLE TEAM USA (USA), 5-1 – 6 pt (1 pt from ACWS)
Emirates Team New Zealand (NZL), 5-1 – 5 pt
Land Rover BAR (GBR), 2-4 – 4 pt (2 pt from ACWS)
Artemis Racing (SWE), 2-5 – 2 pt
SoftBank Team Japan (JPN), 2-3 – 2 pt
Groupama Team France (FRA), 2-4 – 2 pt
Source: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2017/05/31/americas-cup-skunked-bermuda/
