Credit : GM Raget
I've ridden on the back of a few grand prix boats in my time, the old Version 5 AC boats, Volvo Open 70s, the Russell Coutts inspired RC44. Never before, however, have I been asked to wear a crash helmet.
The safety briefing over and done with, a short wait at the AC45 Club, and professional racer Mark Ivey welcomes me aboard his 8-metre rib and off we go. I have been assigned to sail with Team Korea for Race 2. I've been watching the fleet race reaching starts on the TV in the media center, but to see it up close, a few meters back from the race committee boat, Regardless, was a spectacle. A good entrée before the main course.
Korea come in 4th across the finish line of the first race, at which point I get a transfer on to the Team Korea support rib. A tall and familiar-looking Swede holds out a hand to welcome me aboard. It's Magnus Holmberg, the skipper of Victory Challenge from the 2007 America's Cup, now bringing his long experience to this start-up team. Five minutes of chat with the Korean back-up crew and then we pull up alongside the AC45.
None of the crash helmets fitted me. "Big brain," Mark Ivey tells me. I'll take that. One of the nicer ways of describing my XL-size cranium. The Guest Racer leaves his helmet on board the AC45 for me to take over, and luckily this one is an XXL. "Hi Chris!" to skipper Chris Draper. I'd just been interviewing him earlier in the day, and I used to race Chris a decade earlier in the 49er skiff class. Just that Chris won two World Championships and an Olympic medal and, errrr, I didn't. So there he is sitting on the windward float, holding the tiller and shouting orders, and here am I, sitting in the cheap seats.
Well, to be more accurate, it's not really a seat and it certainly ain't cheap! The Guest Racer's position is on the very back of the boat, sitting on the scorpion-tail camera mount that extends off the central carbon fibre spine of the boat. This is the backbone that bears all the massive loads that run down from the giant wing, through the square platform, the two 45-foot floats and the foils and rudders.
There's not much to hold on to, except for some red reins that have been lashed to the aft beam, enabling me to hang on for grim death. As the knife-bows plunge up and down through the Cascais swell, I'm ready to ride the horse, or more accurately Team Korea’s striped cat. I know it's not cool to smile on TV, and I haven't seen the footage yet, but no doubt I have been grinning like an idiot throughout.
Draper uses some expletive-deleted language to make his points forcefully to the crew as they rapidly debrief the first race and feed any learning or experiences back into their hastily-made plans for Race 2. I grin at Chris and remind him he's on candid camera. There are five cameras installed on every AC45 and Lord knows how many microphones dotted around the place, and the sailors are far too locked into the moment to remember to temper their sailors' language. They’ve been swearing like troopers - or sailors - since they were in short trousers.
Actually most of them on board are still wearing short trousers which, bearing in mind the cheesegrater netting that forms the trampoline underfoot, along with the criss-cross of highly loaded ropes tailed onto unyielding metal winches, seems a bit on the under-dressed side. Former Finn sailor and man mountain Chris Brittle, all 2 metres of him, is wearing a wetsuit, with shin pads and knee pads for protection. And I think none the less of him for that.
The 5 minute gun fires and we're into final preparations and then with 2 minutes to go it's clear Chris wants the leeward end of the start line. So too, does James Spithill, who bears away aggressively to protect 'pole position'. 8 seconds to go, we're two boatlengths to windward and it's bows down, power on, and blast off! We're hemmed in by some serious talent: Spithill to the left of us, Russell to the right, here we are, stuck in the middle of, well, an ORACLE Racing sandwich.
If ever there was a time for a camera (not permitted to Guest Racers), this is it. I'm whipping the red reins, willing the cat forwards as we launch towards Mark 1. "We're going for the gybe!" Chris calls. We're on the inside and clear to gybe while the rest of the fleet scythes past our transom on starboard.
Feels to me like we're going fast enough, and in no time the next gybe is upon us. The moment of truth. How has our gamble to the left of the pack worked out? China Team are well in front, not a good sign, and the strategy hasn't worked out. From 3rd or 4th at Mark 1, we're down to 6th or 7th as we make a bid for the opposite gate mark to the leaders.
Catflap, the bowman, is working flat out at the front of the tramp, and all of the crew are putting in max effort. Up the first beat, Chris looks under the wing to see if we can cross some starboard-tackers with right of way. Tempting, but no. Instead, a last-minute big bearaway as we fly a hull close past the transom of Artemis.
Aleph tacks to leeward between us and the windward mark boat, and it looks like we're going round together but the French struggle to maintain pace through the manoeuvre and we're clean away for the second run.
The leeward gate is upon us again in no time at all, and now it's a last bid to try and get on terms with Artemis, perhaps beat them to the finish. "Fast tack!" Chris calls, trying to wrong-foot Terry Hutchinson and Co, but they're wise to it, tacking on our face. If we can't beat them, at least let's beat the two French and Spanish behind us. The final reach to the finish, and it's the final fly-by past banks of photographers and TV crews, helicopters buzzing overhead. We get 6th across the line, no great reason for Team Korea to smile but I still can’t stop grinning.
Now I understand why veteran Cup journalist Bob Fisher has been absent from the media center every afternoon. Having been guest racing on board various boats at least once every day, Bob has clocked up more AC45 experience than some of the professional sailors on these Cup teams. If you've harboured any doubts about the new format, if you'd like the Cup to go back to the 'good old days', I challenge you to feel the same way after you've been out as a Guest Racer.
-Andy Rice
From : America's Cup
