Oracle Double Up at AC World Series
The America’s Cup World Series San Diego is in the books, and Oracle’s James Spithill proved once again why he’s got the helm of the Oracle Racing ‘A’ boat. On Saturday, Spithill and company dispatched the French entry, Yann Guichard’s Energy Team, in two straight races to take the match racing honors. Yesterday, they followed that win up with a win in the fleet racing championship.
While we’ve come to expect good results from Oracle Spithill, Emirates Team New Zealand, and Artemis, the biggest surprise came from the two French teams. With Yann Guichard replacing Loïck Peyron as skipper, Energy Team won the match racing seeding series, guaranteeing them a spot in the match racing semi-finals for the first time in the AC World Series. They made the most of the opportunity when they defeated Artemis to reach the final. Aleph, with Pierre Pennec replacing Bertrand Pace as skipper, managed to qualify for the match racing. They nearly snatched a semifinal spot when they led Artemis by a country mile during their deciding match. But fate intervened and a technical glitch — the R/C temporarily lost the virtual boundaries for the race course — caused the race to be abandoned. In the re-sail, Artemis and skipper Terry Hutchinson prevailed. Regardless, it was heartening to see the two teams from the nation with the most experience in multihulls sailing their way into the mix.
Judging by reports from the boots on the ground, and the flurry of postings on the SF Contingent to SD to Watch AC 45‘s Facebook page, there had to have been well over 300 Bay Area Cup fans who made the trip down to check out the action and no doubt hang out with the multitude of Bay Area folks who are working for AC Race Management. The overwhelming sentiment was that the racing was fantastic to watch, and impressive enough to be compelling even when the breeze was down and it was foggy or raining. It sounded like the village was less than impressive and provided precious little access to anyone who hadn’t purchased one of the VIP packages. Thankfully, the streaming YouTube channel once again proved to be dynamite, and we lost more than a few hours watching the action.
Now the World Series goes into hibernation until next April when it travels to Naples, Italy. In the meantime, if you were down in San Diego, we’d love to get a short impression of the America’s Cup World Series experience.