The Orient Express Racing team was beaten by the British team Ineos and is therefore definitively eliminated from the Louis Vuitton Cup.
So it won’t be for this time. Unable to win the America’s Cup, the legend of crewed sailing, since its creation in 1851, the French sailors have failed again and are already eliminated from the 37e edition. Forced to win their last qualifying regatta for the Louis Vuitton Cup, they lost this Monday to the British team from Ineos.
A defeat of 1 minute 11 which definitively buries their dreams of qualifying for the semi-finals. “We are very disappointed, we believed in it until the end, confessed Stéphane Kandler, the boss of the French challenge, to the microphone of Canal +. We aimed higher, we must not hide it. It’s the competition, we are a young team. Three years ago, we were with our pencil and our eraser”.
Absent from the last edition in Auckland, the French team that had taken over the design of the New Zealand boat has only won one victory in eight regattas in Barcelona. And it bows out by ranking fifth and last in the Louis Vuitton Cup responsible for selecting the challenger that will face the New Zealand title holder in the Louis Vuitton Cup in October, with only the first four qualifying for the semi-finals.
Never in a position to win
During this final regatta, which they absolutely had to win to hope to overtake the Swiss Alinghi in the rankings, fourth before this last day with 2 victories, the French sailors never managed to take the lead in very light winds. After a better start from Ben Ainslie’s men, Quentin Delapierre and his crew only conceded ground to be 25 seconds behind after the first close-hauled leg. Then followed passages at the following buoys with 47”, 1’24, 1’04 and always at least 500 meters behind.
The only hope to save their heads was a manoeuvring error by the British and a prohibitive landing in very light winds for these flying boats. But no miracle, and in the end, a gap of 1’11 which therefore sealed the end of a rich human adventure but which must be said to be very disappointing from a sporting point of view.
With the design of the New Zealand boat to build the French monohull and the support of renowned sailors like Frank Cammas, performance director but also of the Accor group, the French team undoubtedly had the means to do much better, as Quentin Delapierre told us before the start of his first America’s Cup. “We fought hard but it wasn’t enough,” he said after the elimination. “I can’t wait to continue our project so that we come back stronger.”.
Bruno Dubois, the co-boss of the French challenge, did not hide his emotion on Canal +: “There is a mixture of emotion, sadness and anger. It annoys me but that’s how it is.”… Yes, like that for decades and decades. Hope always, ambition often and disappointment once again. The French curse in the oldest sporting competition in the world continues…
