By Alexander Smith
BARCELONA (Reuters) – New Zealand will face a formidable challenge from Britain’s battle-hardened skipper Ben Ainslie when they face off in the America’s Cup, regatta director Iain Murray said on Saturday.
As Ainslie took a day off the water to cheer the British entry in the first women’s America’s Cup, the New Zealand crew he has won the right to face were out practising as they made the most of the time allocated to them on the race course.
“I’m quite sure that the Kiwis are fast, but Ben is also fast and the thing that Ben has got up his sleeve is he’s such a match racer and he’s got a lot of match experience under his belt that the Kiwis don’t,” Murray, 66, told Reuters.
“You’ll see them practice as much as they possibly can,” Murray said of the New Zealand crew skippered by Pete Burling.
Ainslie and his crew beat Italy in a closely-contested Louis Vuitton Cup, securing the right to mount a British challenge for the America’s Cup for the first time in 60 years.
The “Auld Mug” was first raced for off the south coast of England in 1851 and has never been won by Britain, something that Ainslie has spent the last decade trying to remedy.
The 11 races Britain notched up against Italy, with the experience gained as a crew and the improvements made to their foiling AC75 boat, could give them an early jump, as was the case when the Italians challenged New Zealand in 2021.
“You’d have to say if you’re putting money on it that the odds are that Ben will probably have an advantage at the start,” Murray said of the first-to-seven-wins America’s Cup beginning on Oct. 12.
Murray, who described Ainslie as an “unpredictable”, “ruthless” and “hard to handle” sailor, said that the 47-year-old was a totally different person on the water.
“That’s all been part of his success over a very long period of time, so the Kiwis are going to have to handle and manage that,” said Murray, who has been involved in eight America’s Cup events, four as a competitor and four in race management.
Murray said the performances so far had shown the high-speed boats were “awesome” for head-to-head match racing, adding: “It’s back to fist fighting of the first degree”.
(Reporting by Alexander Smith; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
