Team Emirates GBR driver Dylan Fletcher is hoping to transform the pressure from the home crowd into better results after a tumultuous first day of SailGP racing in Portsmouth.
His team fell to disappointing fourth and sixth place finishes in front of 20,000 spectators, before roaring back in the final race of the day to claim victory at the Emirates Great Britain Sail Grand Prix in Portsmouth.
It places the reigning champion fourth in the Group B standings, four points off the qualification spots for Sunday’s all-important final.
He said: “We certainly feel the extra pressure at a home event and especially after the first couple of races we thought it wasn’t what we know we're capable of and it's not what everyone here came to see.
“So I had a bit of a talk to myself after the second race and was like, we need to sort this out. It was nice to go and execute. I guess when the pressure felt at its highest, we had to go out and have a good race.”
The British team are currently third in the season’s standings, with November’s grand final always the long-term goal.
But other teams have their designs on the final too. Saturday’s Group B table-toppers, Sweden’s Artemis, are in the mix, alongside the US SailGP team, who also trumped Emirates GBR.
Fletcher said: “I think it was due to the way the courses were set up with the forts and the bias on the course. It meant that you really needed to take the left turn at the bottom and then go all the way to the boundary.
“It wasn't really a tactician's day; it was just to start and then try and lock the race down. It is not the most exciting race course from a tactician's point of view, but it was obviously great action for the crowd in terms of breezy conditions and boats going fast.
“I think that it will be interesting to see if they change the course at all for tomorrow. It felt like today, in Group A, the boats were not being sailed quite as well as the Group B.
“There were more mistakes going on so there were some more opportunities. Whereas our fleet seemed like everyone was sailing the boat at a more solid level, so there were fewer opportunities.”
It was New Zealand’s Black Foils who came through as overnight leader in Group A, ahead of Canada’s NorthStar and Spain’s Los Gallos, who each won a race.
Group fleet racing, where boats are put into two groups, is set to continue throughout the remainder of the season, with boats reaching 100km/h.
Fletcher said: “[We learnt about] the boat-on-boat positioning and trying to have a go at a few different tactics in order to try to wiggle free effectively and make sure that we can try and keep control sort of as we did in the last race.
“The boat handling wasn't as good as I think we're capable of, and then I also felt as though we weren't doing a good enough job at the start and managing that situation.”
The Emirates Great Britain Sail Grand Prix returns to Portsmouth on 25-26 July. Limited tickets are still available via //SailGP.com/Portsmouth.
