A start in light airs
Conditions are expected to be light in Barcelona, with a 6-9 knot breeze from the east-south-east and light seas. The last two boats from the preliminary races, Team Orient Express and Red Bull Alinghi, will face off in this first round of the Louis Vuitton Cup.
The French will then have to battle against Luna Rossa at the end of the day, provided the wind holds out.
The serious business begins
All the skippers, including the Defender, took part in the press conference on the eve of the start of the Louis Vuitton Cup. The big news is that the Defender will be able to race against the Challengers in these qualifying regattas, which was not the case in previous editions.
Team New Zealand will thus be able to accumulate experience and data before the start of the America's Cup, in accordance with the rules that the New Zealand team has drawn up itself.
Faces were understandably tense on the eve of the regatta. After more than three years of work, mobilizing hundreds of staff and the largest budgets in sports sailing, the stakes are high, as Jimmy Spithill, helmsman of Luna Rossa Pirelli, confirms:
"I think the whole fleet has had a reliability problem at some point, either in the preliminary regatta or on some of the training days with the media, so it's on everyone's mind. But you have to understand that these boats are literally at the limit. We push our craft very, very, very far and they're incredible machines, so it's all part and parcel of cutting-edge technology and pushing things forward."
French outsiders
Quentin Delapierre, who came last in the preliminary races, remained optimistic but lucid about the start of the regattas:
"It's not that frustrating. We know that we didn't have a lot of experience on the circuit, especially on the starts, and that we hadn't had the opportunity to race against another boat during the campaign. The preliminary regatta was therefore an incredible experience for us, which enabled us to learn as much as we could. On the starts and pre-starts, we learned a lot and we'll show it tomorrow. I'm really confident in the team, the challenge is huge for us, but many departments within the team learned a lot and improved their skills during the preliminary regatta, so it's a good opportunity for us."
