Emirates Team New Zealand Prepare to Race in Toulon

Emirates Team New Zealand Prepare to Race in Toulon

The clock continues to tick down towards the end of the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series, with the 8th event taking place in Toulon, France 9th - 11th September as Groupama Team France joins the list of challenges to host a home Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series event.

The Toulon event will see the return of helmsman Peter Burling and trimmer Blair Tuke onto the Emirates Team New Zealand AC45 having fulfilled their four year ambition of winning Olympic gold in the 49er in Rio last month.

“We are really excited to be getting back into the Emirates Team New Zealand environment, and back racing on the world series” said helmsman Peter Burling

“For the past 4 years we have had dual goals we have been working towards, with the Olympics and the America’s Cup. With the gold medal now ticked off it feels good to now have a singular focus being part of Emirates Team New Zealand.”

The Emirates Team New Zealand line up will revert to the regular crew that has sailed together for six of the seven Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series events so far lead by skipper Glenn Ashby who will be back trimming the wing.

“We will go into this regatta feeling really confident, we actually took a huge amount away from it.” explained Ashby

“Changing positions like we did to cover Pete and Blairs absence, we gained a really valuable first hand understanding of each others roles onboard, which going forward will be a great asset in terms of crew manoeuvres.”

It is now getting to the business end of the series, where vital points are on the table to take forward into the Louis Vuitton Qualifiers and potentially America’s Cup match in nine months time, so every race counts.

Ashby explained that it is only getting more and more intense, but the pressure is on the leading teams to not trip up.

“We will be gunning for them, don’t worry about that. We just need to sail as well as we know we can, be consistent and we should be right there in the mix.”

The Emirates Team New Zealand shore crew including grinder Guy Endean have been in Toulon already working hard to repair one of the AC45 daggerboards that was badly damaged having tagged a mooring buoy in the middle of the bottom mark gate during the final race of the last even in Portsmouth.

The Emirates Team New Zealand crew for Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series Toulon is:

GLENN ASHBY (Skipper)

PETER BURLING (Helmsman)

RAY DAVIES (Tactician)

BLAIR TUKE (Trimmer)

GUY ENDEAN (Grinder)

Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series Overall Leaderboard

LAND ROVER BAR 367

ORACLE TEAM USA 366

EMIRATES TEAM NZ 357

SOFTBANK TEAM JAPAN 328

ARTEMIS 315

GROUPAMA TEAM FRANCE 292

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