Land Rover BAR win the Louis Vuitton America's Cup World Series Portsmouth

The home team were crowned victors at Louis Vuitton America's Cup World Series despite unseasonal conditions causing cancellation of final day's racing.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge attended the race to show their support for the British America's Cup Challenger & present the official prizes.

The three days of sailing and onshore activities drew over 130,000 spectators while extreme weather with winds of over 40 knots forced cancellation of final day racing and onshore event programme

Land Rover BAR were billed by many as the favourites heading into the Louis Vuitton America's Cup World Series, Portsmouth, and the Land Rover BAR team delighted their home supporters when they were crowned winners on Sunday July 26.

Skipper Sir Ben Ainslie, wing trimmer Paul Campbell-James, runner David 'Freddie' Carr, trimmer Nick Hutton and bow/tactician Giles Scott scored one win and one second place on Day 1. Unfortunately gale force winds on Day 2, Sunday July 26 forced the abandonment of racing and cancellation of the event programme. However, the home team had secured the victory and, 164 years after the very first America's Cup racing was held on the Solent, it was the British boat which took the win.

Sir Ben Ainslie, Land Rover BAR

"It's a real shame that we didn't get to race today, because of the amount of effort I know Team Origin and everyone has put into the event here in Portsmouth, and the number of spectators and fans we had out watching the racing yesterday. But that is the weather and unfortunately we can't control it.

"We're absolutely delighted to win the first America's Cup World Series here in Portsmouth, it's a great start for us on our America's Cup journey. It's incredible for us, to win here on our home patch, in front of our home crowd, it's a massive statement for the future.

"In my sailing career, I've never seen anything like yesterday. The amount of people that came out on the water, on the shore line, supporting the event and supporting us as a home team, we were all of us as a team completely blown away by."

Glenn Ashby, Emirates Team New Zealand

"Full credit to Ben and the guys, they sailed a fantastic day yesterday and deserve to be where they are. It would have been great to finish one point better yesterday, but it was a fantastic result for us and we're very, very happy.

"As a competitor I love the breezy conditions, but I 100% agree with race committee's decision. The safety concerns were definitely there, we have a 25 knot wind limit for a reason, and fully respect that, and I think all the other competitors do too, we don't want to get anyone hurt.

"We're really, really looking forward to coming back. The people of Portsmouth certainly came out in big support for Ben, and it was great to see so many people supporting the event as a whole and coming to see the racing. So for us coming from Emirates Team New Zealand it was a fantastic week."

Jimmy Spithill, Oracle Team USA

"I think this just shows how great it is to have a British team back in the America's Cup competition. There was some serious interest here – you look at the estimated spectator numbers on and off the water, it was as if the actual America's Cup was being raced in terms of crowd size, it was really comparable. It's just so cool to see a competitive team come from here and I know from past experiences that the Brits get behind their home sporting teams. These guys will be tough.

Dean Barker, SoftBank Team Japan

"Well, with the racing that we had here was obviously great. We made a couple too many mistakes here yesterday which cost us a lot of places, but I'm very happy that we've managed to come here, have some good racing and we've got plenty to work on.

"It's always hard with the weather – there's a risk anywhere that you don't necessarily finish the schedule, and it was a shame that we had such extreme weather here today."

Overall Results

1st Land Rover BAR 19

2nd Emirates Team New Zealand 18

3rd Oracle Team USA 16

4th Groupama Team France 13

5th SoftBank Team Japan 13

6th Artemis Racing 11

*Image credit Geographe.org CC2.0