MADRID, 21 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The waters of Barcelona will become the epicentre of world sailing from this Thursday with the third Preliminary Regatta of the 37th edition of the prestigious America’s Cup, a first event that will serve as a ‘warm-up’ for the final fight to become the official challenger of Emirates Team New Zealand in October and which will also test the new ‘AC75’ of the six participants.
Barcelona is now ready to host one of the most traditional and prestigious competitions in the world of sailing. From this Thursday until October 27, the Spanish city will be the focus of much attention to see who will win the Hundred Guineas, the trophy awarded to the winner and now held by the New Zealand boat.
“Congratulations to the event organisers and to Barcelona for the work and effort they have put in over the last two years to get us to where we are. The boats are spectacular, the performance, especially in strong winds, is impressive both with and against the wind. I think the spectators will be amazed to see this; sailing these boats is a great privilege. And what a beautiful city. Speaking of the competition, everything is in place for it to be one of the best America’s Cups and we are really looking forward to it,” said the Englishman Sir Ben Ainslie, CEO of INEOS Britannia.
The British boat, the ‘Challenger of Record’, the first to challenge the champion, the Italian Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, finalist of last edition, the American American Magic, the most successful team with 25 victories, the Swiss Alinghi Red Bull Racing, winner in 2003 and 2007, the latter in Valencia, and the French Orient Express Racing Team, the last to sign up, will be the ones looking to be the final challenger of Emirates Team New Zealand between August 29 and October 7.
But before that, all of them, including the defender, will be able to take a first look at their respective ‘weapons’, boats of a very high level of design, speed and technology, in this last Preliminary Regatta, the third after those held in the Barcelona town of Vilanova i la Geltrú in September 2023, with the triumph of the American Magic, and in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, last December with the victory of Team New Zealand. Then, with ‘AC40’ models, different from those that will be seen in the waters of Barcelona.
“It’s been over three years since we last raced the AC75s. All the teams have experimented a bit with racing this cycle in the AC40s but the AC75s have reached a completely different level. In those three years, development hasn’t stopped, everyone has worked really hard to develop the boats, to improve the level they can reach and that’s exactly what we’ll see over the next month of racing,” warned Peter Burling, skipper of the defender, at a press conference.
The six teams will compete in four days of ‘match-racing’, in a round-robin format in a total of 15 races, from which the two fastest will emerge and will compete in a final on Sunday 25 August, from which the winner of this last Preliminary Race will emerge. Alinghi Red Bull Racing, which suffered a scare on Tuesday with the breakdown of its mast, and the Orient Express Racing Team will be in charge of opening the ‘battle’ from 2:00 p.m.
Next up will be the turn of the stars of the last America’s Cup held in Auckland (New Zealand), Emirates Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, while the third round will see INEOS Britannia and American Magic take on each other, and the first day will be closed by Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli and Oriente Express Racing Team.
“I think this race will be very different to the other Preliminaries because we have the ‘AC75s’ and it is a ‘match race’ format. We learned a lot in the Preliminaries in Vilanova with the victory and also from the defeat in Jeddah where we did not sail well. We have worked to improve and we hope to continue improving every day and learn everything we can from our competitors,” warned Paul Goodison, helmsman of American Magic together with Tom Slingsby.