The 2nd Red Bull Youth America's Cup is underway off Bermuda, and the first group has already finished their races in qualifying group B. The British youngsters from Team Land Rover BAR have done better than their boss, who was eliminated by Emirates Team New Zealand in the semi-finals of the Challenger Playoffs for the 35th America's Cup. The British youth team, equipped with excellent and sustainable training facilities thanks to the Land Rover BAR campaign, reached the final level on points with the victorious NZL Sailing Team.
The Spanish Impulse Team showed just how close it was in the upper house of this preliminary round group, also qualifying for the youth final as third in the group on equal points with the New Zealanders and the British. The Kiwis won three of the six races over two days, the British two and the Spanish one. The biggest surprise in Group B was provided by the home team BDA, who also managed to secure a ticket to the final with fourth place. Next Generation USA and the Austrian Candidate Sailing Team were eliminated.
The second group will start their qualification on Thursday. The SVB Team Germany, led by skipper Max Kohlhoff and helmsman Paul Kohlhoff from Kiel, will be taking part. The young team is thus heading for the climax of a campaign initiated on their own initiative and sponsored by partners such as SVB, Flightright and BMW, which aims to finally bring German sailing back up to the world's top level, at least on the junior stage of professional sailing.
The challenge for the six-man crew and their land team is huge, as some of their opponents are involved in major Cup campaigns and therefore had better training opportunities in advance. This also applied to the team from Bermuda, for example, which Oracle Team USA had taken on with great commitment. Bermuda's talents benefited from tips from the mouth of two-time Cup winner Jimmy Spithill and intensive coaching from Oracle coach Philippe Presti. In Group B, the New Zealanders, the British, the Americans (who were nevertheless eliminated) and the team from Bermuda enjoyed the advantage of a "mother campaign". In Group A, Artemis Youth Racing, the Japanese Kaijin Team Japan and Team France Jeune had the best of luck.
But even without "Big Brother", the German sailors have big plans and are determined to reach the final of the best eight youth teams, which will be held on the Great Sound off Hamilton on 20 and 21 June. To do this, they have to sail well enough on the foiling AC45 catamarans over the next two days to achieve one of the top four places. Paul Kohlhoff said today in an interview with YACHT online: "Things are going quite well here. We were able to make up some ground and also had a few moments of brilliance. Now we have to get the basics right and not allow ourselves to make any big mistakes. Then we think reaching the final is realistic."
Six days of training had to be enough for the Germans. All other teams apart from the Danes had more than twice as much preparation time (13 days) on the foiling 45-footers. In qualification group A, Team Tilt (Switzerland) and the Swedes are the top favourites.
The final results of Group B
1st NZL Sailing Team (New Zealand), 51 points
2nd Land Rover BAR Academy (Great Britain), 51 points
3rd Spanish Impulse Team (Spain), 51 points
4th team BDA (Bermuda), 45 points
5th Next Generation USA, 36 points
6th Candidate Sailing Team (Austria), 36 points
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
