Ben Ainslie’s GB team on brink of America’s Cup defeat by New Zealand

Ineos Britannia are on the brink of defeat in the 37th America’s Cup in Barcelona after going 6-2 down in their first-to-seven series against Emirates Team New Zealand.

It was a chastening day on the water for Ben Ainslie’s men who lost both races to the defenders – and both in fairly emphatic fashion it has to be said.

After the high of Wednesday, when Ineos won their first two races of the series and declared “the comeback was on”, it was a huge disappointment for their army of travelling supporters.

Tricky, shifty conditions, allied to an unsettled sea state, were not unwelcome as far as Ineos were concerned. A true ‘sailors’ day’ promised to reward the crew who could best pick the shifts and join them together, rather than necessarily the fastest boat, which almost certainly belongs to New Zealand.

In the event, though, it was New Zealand who picked them, sailing both races beautifully.

Race 7 produced a fairly even start, but New Zealand, who had started to the right end of the line, got a huge right shift and managed to tack on Ineos at the first cross, winning the race to the first windward gate and controlling the race from then on, winning by over a minute.

Race 8 was a similar story. This time, New Zealand did a better job off the line, taking the left side, hitting it with 2 knots more pace, and then profiting from a left shift.

Ainslie: ‘It’s not over yet’

Ineos appeared to pick up an issue with their rudder on the first upwind leg, with coach Rob Wilson speculating they may have some damage to the leading edge. But Ainslie did not try to make excuses afterwards.

“We had a little bit of an issue but to be honest I think it came down to the first shift off those starts.  It’s not over yet. We’ll come back and tomorrow is another day.”

They will come back on Saturday, but whether we will have any racing is a moot point. There are just 2 knots of wind forecast, with the rest of the weekend looking similarly light. “I hope you enjoyed the breeze because that could be the last of it for a while,” remarked co-helm Nathan Outteridge as New Zealand crossed the line in the second race, which they won by 55 seconds.

It does mean the Kiwis may have to sit on match point for a while. And we have seen them throw away bigger leads in the America’s Cup.

Ainslie was part of Oracle Team USA when they came back from 8-1 down to win 9-8 win against the Kiwis in San Francisco in 2013. But New Zealand’s boat looks as if it is on rails at the moment.

Talk about deflating. Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s birthday balloons – the Ineos co-founder turned 72 on Friday – would have needed topping up with helium after this.

03:02 PM BST

We could see the Auld Mug lifted tomorrow

Races nine and ten are scheduled for tomorrow at 13:10 BST. It’s the first day in this contest that we have the potential to see an America’s Cup team lift the Auld Mug, and unfortunately for British fans that team can only be Emirates Team New Zealand, who now have five match points.

Bear in mind though that Ben Ainslie was part of the Cup-winning Oracle Team USA in 2013, who successfully defended eight match points against the Kiwis. Stranger things have happened.

02:58 PM BST

Ainslie: “hats off to the Kiwis”

“It wasn’t a good day for us - hats off to the Kiwis, they sailed two really, really strong races in that shifty stuff and just managed to pick the right side off both start lines and get that first shift and did a really nice job of defending when ahead and putting us in a bad spot. We’ll take it on the chin and it’s still not over yet, so we’ll keep fighting.”

02:51 PM BST

Masterclass by the defenders

Emirates Team New Zealand skipper Pete Burling said: “It was nice to bounce back from a few small mistakes the other day and put a couple of solid races on the board.” He credited the hard work from the cyclors, saying: “The pedal teams behind me - on both sides of the boat - put in a huge stint.”

Regarding the overall result, co-helm Nathan Outteridge said: “I’m feeling like it’s not done until it’s done so looking forward to seeing you on the weekend.”

02:42 PM BST

NZL 6-2 GBR

What a momentum shift. Emirates Team New Zealand take it to match point in the first-to-seven America’s Cup.

02:40 PM BST

One leg left for NZL

A single downwind lies between Emirates Team New Zealand and match point in the America’s Cup.

02:39 PM BST

Back on the final upwind

Both teams heading over to the left. Brits will be looking to open up a split again.

Coach Rob Wilson said: “We’ve just got to keep pushing for this one and hope they make a mistake.”

He suspects that Ineos Britannia hit something in the water with their rudder on the first upwind, which could have caused a small amount of damage and possibly be resulting in the little spin-outs on the downwinds.

02:33 PM BST

Brits trying to open up leverage

Ineos Britannia trying everything they can to open up a big split in the hope of a favourable wind shift. They have made some small gains here on this upwind. The lead is down to 23 seconds but that’s still quite the gap.

02:30 PM BST

Halfway point

It feels like Emirates Team New Zealand are in a league of their own today - both in boat speed and also reading the tricky wind conditions. They are leading by over 600 metres and it will really take a mistake from Pete Burling’s team for the Brits to make that distance up - and we don’t see those kind of errors from this slick Kiwi outfit very often.

02:26 PM BST

Huge lead for NZL here

They maintain a loose cover over GBR, but are very much sailing their own race according to shift and pressure. The comms on the Kiwi boat sound very cool and calm, keeping it simple. 41 seconds the lead.

02:22 PM BST

Flatter water than Wednesday

The NZL boat seems to have a slight boat speed advantage in the flatter conditions. They have a 25 second lead around the first leeward gate.

02:20 PM BST

Touchdown for Ineos

They’ve lost a lot of ground there immediately after the bear away.

02:19 PM BST

NZL lead around first windward gate

They lead by 15 seconds at the first turning point. GBR follow into that big right-hand pressure at the top.

02:18 PM BST

First cross advantage NZL

Big advantage to NZL on a left shift. They seem happy to continue and not tack on top of GBR. Big separation between boats again. Both happy to sail their own race against the conditions rather than each other at the moment.

02:16 PM BST

Brits tack off

Ineos Britannia have tacked off early. Big split here early doors. Kiwi comms saying they are happy to continue to the left boundary into nice pressure. Let’s see what happens at the first cross.

02:15 PM BST

Ineos Britannia going for right-hand-side

Kiwis going for the pin, Brits to windward. Clean start.

02:14 PM BST

Boats have entered the pre-start box

Ineos Britannia have starboard entry. They gybe onto port to go hunting down Emirates Team New Zealand. Potentially more pressure on the right-hand-side of the track, it will be interesting to see if the teams defend that end of the start.

02:09 PM BST

Six minutes until race eight start

Don’t go anywhere, we are in countdown. Looks like we have had a breeze-build, with gusts of up to 17 knots.

02:06 PM BST

Ben Ainslie reacts to race seven loss

The Ineos Britannia skipper said: “Tough race for us. We looked like we were potentially going to be in reasonable shape off the start line and the breeze just kicked in hard on the right. They did a nice job defending that and got a lead and then again, just defended the pressure and shift so that was kind of it really. So yeah, tough race for us we’ll keep plugging away and come back and try and get another one back in this next one.”

01:58 PM BST

Increasingly nail-biting for British fans

This next race is absolutely huge. It’s not strictly a must-win. We’ve seen bigger comebacks in the Cup (Oracle 2013 etc). But Ineos will not want to go four match points down. So important to win the start. Ineos got off the line well in that last race but a big right-hand shift killed them. Will be interested to hear what they say about that later and whether they regret not fighting for the right end of the line. Burling implied the Kiwis wanted it, but he may be being wise after the event. So shifty out there.

01:54 PM BST

All on that first shift

It was really even at the start, with both boats hitting the line at pace. It did look for a minute like Ineos Britannia had got the upper hand and edged their bow out, but the right-hand wind shift meant that the boat on the right - in this case Emirates Team New Zealand - made the gain. As the wind shifts, the angle that you can sail your boat at also shifts, and the boat on the inside of the wind shift makes the jump. In this case, it resulted in the Brits losing the first cross and the Kiwis doing an excellent job of staying in control from that point onwards.

01:50 PM BST

Reactions from Emirates Team New Zealand

Skipper Pete Burling said: “It was a completely different day (to Wednesday), so requires a different thing.” He described how reading that first right-hand shift correctly enabled them to sail away from there.

Co-helm Nathan Outteridge described the conditions as “super dynamic”. He said: “ We were pretty switched to what was going to happen there and it kind of caught everyone a bit off guard how dynamic that start got but it was great to get off the line nicely above and then we were just trying to defend the right-hand-side there, but I’m sure the next race is going to be pretty different.”

01:35 PM BST

New Zealand 5 - 2 Great Britain

The Kiwis win race seven with a huge lead over the Brits. Despite a good start from Ineos Britannia underneath Emirates Team New Zealand, the right-hand wind shift gave the Kiwis the advantage to roll over the top of the Brits and control the race from there, reading the conditions brilliantly.

01:33 PM BST

One leg left to go

Ineos Britannia trail by 53 seconds now. The Kiwis did a much better job of managing the shifts on that upwind. One final downwind to go. I can’t see the Brits being able to catch this up.

01:31 PM BST

Huge advantage NZL here

We know that the boat in front has the freedom to choose which shifts they take whereas the boat behind is forced into doing the opposite thing to try and force a passing opportunity - which often leads to not doing the best things regarding the wind direction and pressure. That is creating an increasing lead for Emirates Team New Zealand here.

01:27 PM BST

NZL choose left turn at leeward gate

GBR trail by 29 seconds and choose to split again by opting for the opposite gate. Two legs to go.

01:24 PM BST

180 degree blind spots

Each driver and trimmer can only see 180 degrees - their eyes and ears are their counterpart driver and trimmer on the other side of the boat. On a ‘head out of the boat’ day that means the comms between port and starboard are particularly critical.

NZL are comfortably in the lead at the halfway point in this race.

01:20 PM BST

NZL maintain a loose cover

Pete Burling’s team are playing the shifts but keeping themselves between the Brits and the next mark. They look firmly in control at the moment. There is a lot of chatter in their comms - more than we are used to hearing - but there is a lot going on with all of these changes in shift and pressure.

01:18 PM BST

GBR choose to split

They keep the difference to 13 seconds after the first downwind. It makes sense for them to go around the opposite leeward gate with such big wind changes - plenty of opportunities here.

01:16 PM BST

Huge right shift

That’s why the boats are pointing much more towards the leeward gate than they normally would be able to... expect to see a lot of these big angle changes today - in both the breeze and therefore the angle the boats are sailing. That’s why the race committee is making changes to the course axis.

01:15 PM BST

Race has closed up

GBR makes a big gain at the top on a left shift, but trail NZL by 12 seconds at the first windward gate. We know they are quick downwind. Let’s see what they can do here.

01:13 PM BST

Big header for GBR

That’s a big disadvantage to the Brits. There was a huge right hand wind shift there and the Kiwis extend about 200 metres. It’s the kind of conditions where you have to sail your own race. Pete Burling’s team obviously saw that big right-hander and that’s why they were happy to let the split happen.

01:12 PM BST

NZL wins the start

They are able to tack onto GBR on port on the critical first cross. Big split here.

01:11 PM BST

Brits lead back to the line

Clean start for both boats with NZL to windward.

01:08 PM BST

Pre-start duel

Ineos Britannia are on a port entry today. We know how critical the start is in these races but with the offshore wind there could well be more passing opportunities than there have been previously. The Brits just get across the bow of the Kiwis.

01:07 PM BST

Race seven sequence underway

This will be proper ‘head out the boat’ racing. We have three minutes to run until the start gun.

01:06 PM BST

Offshore winds on the course

There could be some funky goings on here. The westerly wind is blowing straight over the city and that will create some big pressure and direction differences. We can see it already with the live wind map reading 8-14 knots - that’s quite the range.

12:52 PM BST

Up and flying

Ineos Britannia foiling past on some test runs ahead of the imminent start of race seven.

12:40 PM BST

“Every day’s a big day in the America’s Cup”

Sir Ben Ainslie gives his thoughts on today’s racing on dockside before the teams went afloat. He said of Wednesday’s performance: “It was a massive boost for the team. The trick is to jump on that and keep it going now and we need to have another good day today. The team have been preparing hard, everyone’s up for the challenge and let’s get on with it.”

When asked, “Are you still angry?” the response was: “When I’m on a racecourse I’m always angry.”

Fighting talk - that’s what we need.

12:35 PM BST

Variable winds forecast

“It’s a sailors’ day,” said Iain Murray at this morning’s race management briefing. Which basically means it’s about eyes out of the boat today. Trying to read the conditions, which will not be easy. Murray’s forecast as of an hour ago was for 9-10 knots from the north west, dropping to 6-8 knots. With 0.8m waves. But it’s moving about all the time. I’m sitting next to Planet Sail’s Matt Sheahan in the press room, who moonlights as a glider, and he’s been giving me chapter and verse on thermal lifts and gradient breeze.

12:33 PM BST

There she is!

Ineos Britannia - affectionately known as Rita - has been craned in and is ready for racing.

12:30 PM BST

Big sea state predicted again for today

That is good news for Ineos Britannia - we know from Wednesday’s racing that the team’s AC75 deals very well with waves.

Lead Test and Validation Engineer Will Bakewell said: “I think we’ve got very variable conditions, we don’t know what the wind’s going to do, there’s going to be some sea state. So it’s going to be a very sailor-driven day, very eyes out of the boat, timing of manoeuvres, making sure that we set up the boat right for the sea state.”

12:25 PM BST

Royal support in Barcelona

Zara and Mike Tindall head up the British support in Barcelona today - turns out they are big fans.

12:13 PM BST

Coming up today in Barcelona

“It’s awesome to have a battle on our hands now” - that was the reaction of Emirates Team New Zealand skipper Pete Burling after Ineos Britannia won two from two in Wednesday’s racing to bring the scoreline to 4-2 in favour of the Kiwis. It was quite the turnaround, with Burling’s team looking almost unbeatable up until that point.

So what made the difference? The conditions had changed, with light breezes but a considerably more lumpy sea state compared to the flatter waters experienced previously. Ineos Britannia seemed to have found a couple of extra gears upwind - not necessarily in pure boat speed but in VMG, or ‘velocity made good’ - essentially they were able to point a bit closer to the wind direction than their New Zealand rivals.

But the real difference was in the pre-start. In a match race where “there is no second”, the start is absolutely critical, and more often than not the boat with the advantage immediately after the start goes on to win the race. Emirates Team New Zealand fell off their foils in the race five start sequence during a down-speed gybe, and Ineos Britannia did a good job of making their life hard - giving them dirty air and preventing them from getting up and foiling again - which meant they could build a considerable lead which they safely held to the end.

In race six it looked like the Kiwis had the Brits “on the ropes” and pinned to windward above the start line, but Ainslie’s team managed to wriggle out, roll their competitors, and hit the line with 10 knots more pace. The British team’s not-so-secret weapon, seven-time match-race World Champion Ian Williams, spoke to Tom Cary about how he has helped to prepare the team for those critical start line duels.

Races seven and eight are scheduled to begin at 13:10 BST. It’s a huge day - the scoreline at close of play could be completely even at four wins apiece if Ineos Britannia continue their comeback charge, or we could see a match point situation if Emirates Team New Zealand pull away to 6-2 in this first-to-seven contest. Watch this space.