Great Britain’s Land Rover BAR Academy has qualified for the finals of this year’s Red Bull Youth America’s Cup (RBYAC).
Sailing in Bermuda’s Great Sound with strategist and Southampton student Annabel Vose on board, the Land Rover BAR Academy team won two of the six qualifying races, placing second in two others, to score 51 points overall. Their total left them on equal points with the entries from New Zealand and Spain and well in contention to lift the RBYAC on Wednesday 21 June.
Credit: Ricardo Pinto
Annabel, who has just completed her four-year undergraduate master’s degree in Ship Science at Southampton, was thrilled with the team’s progress in difficult conditions with light winds and long oscillating shifts testing the crews. The races were competed on the 35th America’s Cup race course, and in the Land Rover BAR’s senior team’s Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series boat, the AC45F.
Credit: Giles Martin-Raget
Annabel said:
We are incredibly happy to qualify for the Red Bull Youth America’s Cup Finals. As a strategist, it was hard to pick the big shifts but it was great to perform and get the results we needed on such a tricky race course.
The Land Rover BAR Academy team and fellow qualifiers from Pool B now await the results of the Pool A races to determine the final eight teams who will contest the RBYAC Finals scheduled for Tuesday 20 and Wednesday 21 June.
