Both British America’s Cup teams faced challenges on the opening day of the Preliminary Regatta Sardinia on Friday, as the women’s and youth team, Athena Pathway, suffered a capsize and the senior team, GB1, was forced to retire from two out of three races due to gear failure of a one-design supplier part. The issues mean that after the first three races of the event, GB1 is in eighth place and Athena Pathway is in seventh, but there are five more fleet races scheduled across the weekend before the top two teams enter the match race final.
© Ricardo Pinto / America's Cup
The leaderboard after day one has the Luna Rossa Italian women and youth team first, Luna Rossa senior team second, Emirates Team New Zealand women and youth third, Switzerland’s Tudor Team Alinghi fourth, Emirates Team New Zealand’s senior team fifth and France’s La Roche-Posay Racing Team sixth.
The Louis Vuitton 38th America’s Cup Preliminary Regatta Sardinia features eight teams from five nations competing in the one-design AC40 foiling monohulls. Each nation was able to enter up to two AC40s, one representing their senior team and one representing their women and youth team. Great Britain, New Zealand and Italy all entered two teams while France and Switzerland both entered one team representing their senior squads.
© Ricardo Pinto / America's Cup
After a better start to the day than GB1 and a sixth-place finish in race one, the British women and youth team, Athena Pathway, then suffered a capsize in the second race while on the final run to the finish line. All four crew members on-board were uninjured but they had to retire from the race. The crew then swung back into action for the third and final race of the day where they came seventh, ahead of New Zealand's senior team.
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Athena Pathway CEO, skipper and helm Hannah Mills OBE said: “It’s frustrating to not be where you want to be. It was pretty tricky to sail the boat in those full-on conditions and unfortunately we had a few errors at really critical moments. We learned a lot from today though and we’ll go away and look at it all and try and make improvements for tomorrow. That was probably the windiest conditions we’ve ever sailed in here and with the waves on top it was full-on, especially for Sam Webb whose only three weeks into the role, but he did a great job.”
The action continues on Saturday with three more fleet races planed. There will then be a further two fleet races on Sunday before the top two teams progress to the match race final. UK viewers can watch the racing live on the America’s Cup YouTube or website from 14:00 BST.