Ainslie Blitzes The Fleet in Oman - America's Cup World Series - Day 1

The 2016 Louis Vuitton America's Cup World Series (ACWS) opened in Oman with a solid performance from the Land Rover BAR team. A third place finish in the opening race was followed up by consecutive wins in the second and third races, leaving them four points clear – and at the top of the leader-board in Muscat.

Photo: © Lloyd Images

There was no shortage of action despite the light wind conditions with multiple passes, penalties and lead changes. Land Rover BAR were pushed over the line by Groupama Team France in the first race, and had to take a penalty, but with fast boat speed and good tactical decisions they recovered to place third.

Photo: © Lloyd Images

The second race saw a flawless start give the team a big lead at the first mark, that they then built on to win comfortably. But they saved the best for last, lying fourth at the first mark, they passed Emirates Team New Zealand, Softbank Team Japan and finally the holder of the America's Cup, Oracle Team USA, to score their second bullet of the day.

Photo: © Lloyd Images

There is still plenty to play for though, with three double points races scheduled for tomorrow. All the Super Sunday action can be watched in Australia on Fox 5 at 21:00 AEST

Photo: © Lloyd Images

What The Crew Said:

Ben Ainslie, Skipper/Team Principal

"A really big day for the Tacticians. Giles Scott did an awesome job for us, getting us going in the right direction and making the right choices on the modes that we sailed the boat, and the sails that we used.

"The team work was the key to the day in these conditions, you need good starts, and you need to go the right way, but the crew work has to be perfect. If you miss a manoeuvre it costs you hundreds of metres; they [the crew] did a really good job today."

Giles Scott, Tactician

"We're really pleased with that [second] race, it was a case of keeping it simple. The manoeuvres are so costly, so you have to get a good start, we did that then it was a question of getting to the bottom gate and staying clean from there.

"We had a little chat about the start [of the second race], and we thought the line was reasonably even with a slight preference to the leeward end. Normally it's really congested down there, but Ben did a great job of owning that end, it was a really good start and we came good from there."

Paul 'CJ' Campbell James

"Day one of Oman was as expected with light winds, we have done a lot of training in these conditions back home and it really paid off today. We are moving forward through the fleet which always feels good. And especially in the last race we seemed to have good speed, good boat handling and good tactics, and that won us the race so everyone is really happy with race day one in Muscat."

Racing continues tomorrow (Sunday) at 1400 local time (GMT+4) with three races scheduled.

Louis Vuitton America's Cup World Series Oman Leaderboard after 3 races:

1. Land Rover BAR - 8, 10, 10 - 28 points
2. Oracle Team USA - 9, 6, 9 - 24 points
3. Emirates Team NZ - 10, 7, 5 - 22 points
4. SoftBank Team Japan - 6, 9, 6 - 21 points
5. Artemis Racing - 7, 5, 8- 20 points
6. Groupama Team France - 5, 8, 7 - 20 points

BAR Media