When I woke up on Sunday morning and heard the wind rushing down the Solent, I was so disappointed. Like the rest of the Land Rover BAR team, all I had wanted to do was get out on the water for the second day of the America’s Cup World Series event and give the spectators another amazing experience like we had on Saturday. As a sailor this is what you want to be doing; getting out on the water. Instead we were all thrust into this frustrating limbo, waiting to see if racing would take place. It is the worst situation to be in, thinking it’s going to happen, gearing up for it, and then finally not being able to compete. • Ainslie rules the waves in spectacle on the solent But even those of us itching to get out on the water could not argue with the decision to cancel. The organisers called it right.
I have sailed in some pretty bad conditions in my time and people might be surprised that a sailing race can be called off because of high winds. The issue, though, is the type of boat we were using. The AC45 catamaran has a fixed wing sail. You cannot take them down, so you can’t reduce the power as you might in a conventional boat. They have a restriction of only being usable in up to 25 knots of wind and things were blowing much stronger than that yesterday. Had we tried to race, quite a few of the boats would have capsized and people would have got hurt. You cannot mess about with these machines, they are incredibly powerful and become almost impossible to control in that sort of wind. • America's Cup 2015 - in pictures But even though the second day was cancelled, I will look back on what was the first official America’s Cup race held in British waters since 1851 with enormous pleasure and pride. And not just because, after winning one race and coming second in the other on Saturday, our Land Rover BAR team was announced the overall winner. To receive the trophy from the Duchess of Cambridge was an honour. She is patron of the 1851 Foundation charity and she and the Duke are enormous supporters of what we are doing. Such a shame they did not get to see any action. We did manage to give them a go on our race simulator, which they both really got into. But it would have been so much more fun for them had they been able to enjoy what the crowds on the first day had enjoyed.
I was blown away by what happened on Saturday. It was estimated there were 45,000 people watching from the shore, and another 15,000 out on the astonishing armada of 2,200 boats that lined the course. I have never seen anything like that. This was way bigger than those who had watched from Weymouth at London 2012. Partly that was because of the venue; Southsea Common was perfectly adapted to host the event. But it was also because this is the home of the sailing community: Portsmouth, Southampton, Isle of Wight. And how they relished the chance to watch the best sailors in the world compete in the best racing format in their home water. There had been a bit of scepticism when Land Rover BAR came to Portsmouth, about whether we would add value, jobs and economic benefit to the city. I think this weekend demonstrated that is the case. The thousands of people on and off the water show the significant impact we could make. It’s a sign of what could happen were we to bring the Cup home to Britain and defend it here. The scale would be enormous. I think the weekend had another big benefit for us, too. It was not so much in the opportunity to study rival crews at close quarters. We knew Oracle would be good, and Emirates Team New Zealand did an excellent job to come second overall given the problems they have had with funding. Both those teams carried on from the last series with largely the same crews. You can see that in their work. It takes time to build that understanding. That is why I am so pleased with our team. This represented the first time we have all raced together competitively and we did really well. It is a great sign for the future.
Not just for the sailing team but also the designers and boat builders back at base. They have been working incredibly long hours and this demonstrates it is worthwhile; it shows we have the team to extract the best from their designs. And I think another thing this weekend proved is that the America’s Cup is changing. In the past, this was an event largely about who had the best boat, in other words who had the most money. This time there will be an equal balance of design and technology and human sailing skills. Which is how it probably should be. As we head to Gothenburg for the next stage of the World Series in August, we can agree this was a very good start. Sure, there is a long way to go. But what great motivation our team has got from showing we can win it on the water. We can do this. We can bring the cup home.
