Favorite AC Quotes from Loïck Peyron
The 34th America’s Cup is among the strangest ever for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that Loïck Peyron, the great French sailor, is not only the helmsman for the French Energy Team in the America’s Cup World Series, but he’s also the "test pilot" for the Artemis Racing’s new AC72. The football analogy would be if 49er quarterback Colin Kaepernick spent the middle of the week working out with the Green Bay Packers receivers, then on Sunday started for the 49ers against the Packers. It’s not a perfect analogy, of course, because Team Energy is not building an AC72 and therefore Peyron won’t be racing on one. Heck, we don’t even know if they got their 45 back after that salvage claim.
This team allegiance awkwardness didn’t stop Team Energy from posting an interview with Peyron about his first four sails aboard the Artemis AC72.
"It’s a bit like putting a V-8 or V-12 engine on a go-kart," was Peyron’s response to the question of how powerful the AC72s are. Mind you, Peyron is no stranger to racing big multihulls, having been almost untouchable with the 60-ft tri Fujicolor in the ’90s, and having most recently set the around-the-world sailing record — 45 days — with Banque Populaire V, which at 130-ft is nearly twice as long as the AC72s. (She reached speeds over 43 knots and averaged 26.5!)
"Of all the boats I’ve sailed on, she [the AC72] is the trickiest," said Peyron in our second favorite quote. This is from a 53-year-old who has been hardcore ocean racing on every kind of monohull and multihull since the late ’70s. If Loïck says the big cats are tricky, you can take it to the bank. Or Banque.
In other fun America’s Cup news, Brit Ben Ainslie, who earlier in the year became the first person to win medals in five different Olympic Games, including four golds, announced that he’s retired from Olympic sailing in favor of the America’s Cup. While we can’t be sure of his motives, we suspect it is the same that Willie Sutton had for visiting banks — that’s where the money is.