Peter Wilson, our intrepid Chief Pilot, logged in from Valencia to explain the delay in the first race and other worrying developments…

The [first] race was cancelled due to high swells.

I went to the breakwater whist awaiting the decision and the seas looked perfect, but if one looked at the horizon, you could see the bumps of significant swell out to sea. The parameters re conditions are such that the defender, more or less, can say if they are happy with the conditions, given that they won’t go out in anything more than a one meter swell, or if the wind is less than 5 knots or more than 15.

Of course the conditions are changing rapidly at this latitude at this time of year and because the 1st and 3rd races could take up to 3 hours or more it’s a tricky call for all concerned.

As the race fleet waited for conditions to improve there was only 2-3 knots of wind in glassy conditions. Russel Duncan from Airborne (wingman) and I had to stay aloft for over 5 hours [!!! - ed.] waiting for the decision. We couldn’t land (water) safely because of the “confused” nature of the surface which was caused by numerous boat wakes. Also, taking off in such conditions is very tricky because the float speed on the water is the same as takeoff speed over the wing. This means that because we have no headwind to take off into, we are effectively trying to take off along a runway which has bumps in it the size of boat wakes. Needless to say, you wouldn’t dream of using a hard surface runway if it had bumps of one or two feet in it. Plus we have no suspension on the float trikes!

The safe call is to stay in the air.

Eventually we had to go back to base which at the time 30 miles over water, due to fuel requirements.

I had just taken off after refuelling (just like Formula 1) when the message came over the radio that the race was called off for the day and consequently for 2 days. As per the rules.
The world’s media is here, and it’s breaking my heart that we have to “hide” the trikes, the reason being that the Weather Team boss is dead worried that we will be protested against by Oracle and also that the Spanish authorities will “withdraw the permission” that they haven’t given us!

Spain doesn’t recognise aircraft such as ours. [!!! - ed.] Nor do they recognise float planes! [What the!!!??? - ed.] So, we are in a position that they aren’t going to question us, prohibit us, nor give us permission. Alinghi’s home port is Valencia and the authorities are turning a blind eye.

Very frustrating that we aren’t able to ply our wares as it were!

We reckon Alinghi should protest against Oracle’s skipper’s high-tech glasses. But then he’s a Sydney-sider, James Spithill, so, you know, we have a conflict of loyalties. On the other hand, whoever wins, Australia wins!