QUOTES OF THE DAY
James Spithill, ORACLE Racing Spithill: “We’ve got the best shore team. They’re the first guys there, the last to leave, and that really allows us to focus on the racing. We got a full range of conditions in San Diego. We came here expecting lighter winds, but today the breeze was up and we had good speed thanks to them. We did the double [match and fleet racing championship victories]. The last thing we wanted to do was let Dean [Barker] get there first. Now we want to get the double-double, do the same in Naples.”
Dean Barker, Emirates Team New Zealand: “It’s been a good event here, a bit up and down, a bad semi-final, but sailed well apart from that. Today we were in a ding-dong battle all the way round the course. We were hoping to tack in front of Energy, but we had no option to tack back and from there it was a battle. It’s nice to finish still leading the series, still lots to work on, not as race prepared as we should have been here, focused on our testing. But all in all we’re pretty happy.”
Yann Guichard, Energy Team: “For sure I will continue with the team. The result for this event is amazing for us. To get 2nd yesterday and 3rd today is a big surprise. We improve every day but we have a long way to reach the level of the best teams. We work every day towards getting better.”
Pierre Pennec, Aleph: “A fantastic week for us, for learning new things. I hope we come back with a big sponsor, and I think it’s possible to come back with a bigger team.”
Terry Hutchinson, Artemis Racing: “Today the jib wrapped around the forestay, when we turned to go upwind grinding it out wasn’t going to work, so we tacked and that didn’t work. We had to bear off and go downwind and that was the race gone. I would suspect I owe some apologies to the TV, some beep beep moments there.
“From a bigger world perspective, that’s not the standard we’re after. We have great shore support, great designers, but we’re not holding up our end of the bargain. We have to expect more of ourselves, go out and train hard. We need to work harder in the next five months.”
Chris Draper, Team Korea: “The future looks really bright for Team Korea, this week we’ve been thinking about the future a lot, we’re really excited about where we’re at and how things are moving forwards.”
Charlie Ogletree, China Team: “Today’s 1-second loss to Artemis and the longer term future:
“We had room but Artemis had a lot of pace. Artemis got to leeward, I was a little slow easing the wing, the boat flew up high, and they got us by quarter of a boatlength. We’ll go home with a long list of things to work on, namely fundraising, and we hope to see everyone in Naples.”
Vasilij Zbogar, Green Comm Racing: “Everyday we feel better and think we can push, but I think we still can’t sail the boat properly. We will train hard for four months, we’re used to hard work, and I’m 100 per cent sure you’ll see a different team in Naples and Venice.”
Darren Bundock, ORACLE Racing Coutts: “We had some highs and some lows. We won the first race on Wednesday and finished last today. We’ll go away and work out what went wrong. Jimmy [Spithill] won both events, the match racing and fleet racing, so we’ve got a great benchmark. We’ve got some work to do if we’re going to keep pushing Jimmy hard.”
ACEA Chairman Richard Worth: “It is very easy to forget how far we’ve come in a very short space of time. Three months ago the America’s Cup World Series didn’t even exist. Now, we have had three spectacular events, thanks largely to our sailors, these sportsmen of outstanding quality. We have created a stunning sporting event. We saw that today, with some outstanding sport, inches between the boats at the end and real drama throughout. So through a very short space of time the America’s Cup World Series has absolutely come alive.”
Iain Murray, Regatta Director: “We’re going to go to some fantastic venues. The ACWS has grown legs of its own, it has proven itself as a concept. It excites the people, we fit it into the geography of the bays, and creating the stadium racing means we can broadcast our racing from the inside out. I see the World Series going from strength to strength. The AC72s are starting to be built, teams are getting stronger and more confident. We’re heading towards some great events.”
