The America’s Cup World Series event in San Diego came to an end on Sunday and the Green Bears had their best two weeks since the team was created. The crew has made huge leaps in boat handling, maneuvering and on board communication and looks forward to the 3-month training session in Valencia.
San Diego, 20 November 2011: The America’s Cup World Series Event in San Diego came to a conclusion on Sunday under fresh conditions that guaranteed an exciting and competitive final fleet race. There was drama, many lead changes throughout the 40 minutes and very close situations with Artemis nearly capsizing when their jib wrapped.
Oracle Racing Spithill dominated the 9-strong fleet and scored a double, taking both the match racing and fleet racing championships. The Green Bears staged a very hard fight and had a great final dash to the finish line, finishing in 8th place, just 4 seconds behind China Team and Artemis.
It has been a positive year overall for Green Comm Racing and the team has progressed in leaps and bounds. The San Diego event has been the culmination of five months of extremely hard work for a crew that sailed together for the very first time a couple of days before the season’s opening event in Cascais.
The Green Comm Racing AC45 yacht will now be shipped to Valencia where the Green Bears will spend approximately three months training and preparing for the next America’s Cup event in Naples, together with a number of other America’s Cup teams.
Quotes of the day
Vasilij Zbogar, Skipper & Helmsman: “I’m very satisfied with our team in San Diego. We have made good process all around and our level has clearly risen since the first event in Cascais. All the teams have gotten better these last few months and we still haven’t reached their top level because we didn’t have much time on the water and made quite a few changes in the crew.
The entire team is happy with the progress we made so far and they all look forward to our training in Valencia. We feel confident that after three months of hard training we will have improved and we will perform much better in Naples next April. We aren’t far behind the rest of the fleet, we stay close but we still make small mistakes. With such a competitive fleet, the difference between finishing fourth or eighth is extremely small.”
