America’s Cup Competition
Above: Former residents of Kingswear Phillipa and Nick Hutton in Bermuda.
Below: Rafa proudly supports his dad and the rest of the Land Rover BAR team
is definitely less of a theme and whilst the winds are about as unpredictable as the America’s Cup racing we’ve had to date, you can pretty much guarantee that a bikini will feature somewhere each day. Rafa, our nearly two year old (and don’t the tantrums show it) son dips in and out of the hotel pool like a yo-yo; yesterday even saw a fully clothed entry – much to my dismay and cueing a quick life save effort on our part. Nick, when he gets back from a day’s sailing, is doing his best to encourage Rafa to follow in his footsteps as a fearless adrenaline junkie and the expensive pool furniture is often to be found piled high to form a make-shift diving board so that the little deviant can hurl himself into the deep end from perilous heights. Again, much to my dismay (and that of the hotel staff too I imagine).
T But our domestic kamikaze efforts
don’t come anywhere near the action that we’ve seen so far in the America’s Cup competition itself, which has been pretty eventful. We are now over a week and a half into the racing and as we anticipated, the Bermuda Great Sound is proving quite a stadium. Landrover BAR (the British team that Nick represents) has had successes out there as well as some hiccoughs – the guys themselves are in amazing shape
hings have changed dramatically in Bermuda since I last wrote back in March. The distinctly British weather
PART THREE
Philippa Hutton continues her ‘exclusive’ behind the scenes glimpse into Sir Ben Ainslie’s Land Rover BAR team campaigning to win the 2017 America’s Cup in Bermuda this summer. Her husband Nick Hutton (former resident of Kingswear) is part of the crew.
both physically and tactically, nailing the pre-starts and sailing themselves out of some pretty sticky situations (the final defeat of Team France in the round robin competition springing to mind, where I almost had kittens as the boys crossed the line marginally ahead of their European rivals) but there’s no denying that the GBR race boat is not currently looking like the best in the fleet and we struggle when the breeze drops below 10 knots. But that’s what makes the America’s
Cup different after all and why it’s known (not only as the oldest Sporting Trophy in the World) but also as the marine version of Formula One – being as it is not only about the sailing but also about the design of the boats involved and pushing those designs to the limit in order to maximise the speed of the boat in whatever conditions. That said, I’m writing this after an epic
day out on the water, watching all four remaining challengers (the Japanese, the Swedes, the Kiwis and us) tearing around the course in the windiest conditions we’ve seen, reaching speeds of nearly 50 knots and all sustaining some damage to their boats. Fortunately for us, the worst we suffered was a rip in the material covering the fairing at the back of the boat. Less fortunately for Team New Zealand they broke their wing (the aeroplane style rigid sail) initially and then – far more
Photographs © Harry Kenny-Herbert :Land Rover BAR
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