The first of what will be several training sessions on the Extreme 40 catamarans took place this afternoon out of the team base in Valencia. Or maybe today's sail should be called a pre-session. A few of the guys took out one of the boats to stretch their legs, and make sure everything on board was ready to go and functioning as it should.
The X40 cats will be a big part of the sailing team's programme over the next week or so, as tactician John Kostecki (USA) explained to me this afternoon.
"The whole sailing team is here and we have the X40s in the water now so we're looking at honing our match racing skills. The plan is take them out, set up some short courses, do some starts, work on some boat on boat manoeuvres and just get out racing again," he said.
"A few of us were down in Australia over the Christmas break doing some A-Class racing and that was great. We want to continue that momentum and stay sharp."
To this point, the sailing team has been focused on learning the BOR 90 and the wing sail. Now, their attention shifts to more of a 'race mode' and getting prepared for the America's Cup Match.
"With the America's Cup and these big multihulls, I think chances are that there won't be that many classic match racing situations, but we have to be ready for everything," Kostecki explained.
"The starting is going to be key, so we'll be practicing that quite a bit over the coming days.
"We're going to be more in race mode than we have been in San Diego. The focus will be more on boat handling than testing from now onwards."
The X40 cats will be a big part of the sailing team's programme over the next week or so, as tactician John Kostecki (USA) explained to me this afternoon.
"The whole sailing team is here and we have the X40s in the water now so we're looking at honing our match racing skills. The plan is take them out, set up some short courses, do some starts, work on some boat on boat manoeuvres and just get out racing again," he said.
To this point, the sailing team has been focused on learning the BOR 90 and the wing sail. Now, their attention shifts to more of a 'race mode' and getting prepared for the America's Cup Match.
"With the America's Cup and these big multihulls, I think chances are that there won't be that many classic match racing situations, but we have to be ready for everything," Kostecki explained.
"The starting is going to be key, so we'll be practicing that quite a bit over the coming days.
"We're going to be more in race mode than we have been in San Diego. The focus will be more on boat handling than testing from now onwards."
