AC35: Not an auspicious day for Sir Ben Ainslie and the Brits

QUOTE-UNQUOTE: "Britain's Land Rover BAR got its foiling 50-foot catamaran patched up overnight after a frightening collision with SoftBank Team Japan on Saturday. But skipper Ben Ainslie and crew gave up the lead in their two races and were beaten handily by Oracle and Emirates Team New Zealand. That's not a good sign for a country that's tried for 166 years to win back the silver trophy it lost to the schooner America in 1851." –Veteran sports and AC scribe Bernie Wilson of the Associated Press, in his wrap-up story on Sunday's AC racing in BDA. Full story via the Tri-City Herald. But as one friend said in a text this evening, "Give them some credit; at least today they didn't run into anything."

Land Rover BAR's shore team pulled an all-nighter to get their hull patched up and the yacht back in racing condition after yesterday's crash with JPN, for which GBR were penalized on the course and later disqualified by the jury for causing major damage. The team went 0-2 today, again looking unstable and slow in the turns. Indeed, not an auspicious day for the British campaign. Stiff upper lip, boys. Photo: LRBAR's excellent team photog HarryKH.