PRACTICE MAKES ...

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT

Today’s ‘practice day’ was a day of chaos, and the skippers arrived on stage for their ‘meet the public’ stage show still weary and wearing their PFDs beneath their team shirts. What a pity: these buff sailor boys looking all pudgy and Pillsbury Doughboy-like

I was impressed (and consoled) by their admittance of how challenging the boats and venues are; having felt the new AC has left the rest of us sailors behind. Today’s quotes are very telling:

Terry Hutchinson:         “Every day of match racing is sudden death.”
 Yann Guichard:           “It’s my first time racing in San Francisco – a really challenging place. The conditions were really tweaky.”

Dean Barker:               “We had a little incident” (they flipped) “It’s part of the game now: you make a mistake, and you pay for it.”           

Ben Ainslie:                  “This was a great initiation to the AC45s … I would have enjoyed a gentler introduction.”

“Maxx” Sirena:             (when asked about their ‘spectacular capsize’ last week) “Maybe it was spectacular to you, but not us … obviously we chose the San Francisco venue to do that the first time. And the conditions are tough, it could happen again.”

Russell Coutts:             “It’s a challenging venue.”

Nathan Outteridge:    “We had a bit of a swim the other day … still working out where the limits are.”

Phil Robertson:            (late for the press conference: ‘picking seaweed out of his teeth’) “We went down pretty hard. It was like the first hill of a rollercoaster: I just held on and closed my eyes.”

J.R. Hildebrand – AKA “Captain America” Indy 500 Race Car star and Rookie of the Year – who went on a ride along on one of the boats.

“You don’t have to be going 200 miles an hour to feel like you’re hauling ass … I was very impressed to see how sensitive the boats are, the teamwork, how streamlined (the interactions) are … My job was to stay out of the way and hold on!”