Lowkey start for Emirates GBR in Portsmouth practice

In the spiritual home of Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson, England expects, along with the rest of Great Britain, that Dylan Fletcher and Emirates GBR will do their duty on home waters in Portsmouth this weekend. 

Dylan Fletcher reminded us on Friday morning that it was this event a year ago where they really turned their 2025 season around. They dominated the Saturday racing and then narrowly lost out to the Black Foils in the three boat final. However on the strength of Friday’s practice racing, there is a lot of work to do if they’re to threaten for the podium this weekend.

Or maybe less is more. In their group racing the British just couldn’t make an impact. During a close leeward gate mark rounding against the USA, the British had to purposely drop off their foils to avoid what would have been an expensive and pointless collision. From my perspective in the stadium it was hard to see who was in the right or the wrong, but the British struggled to get foiling again for a long time and were relegated to the back of the finish order.

It was a difficult afternoon throughout the three Group B races for Fletcher who, after the final race was done, was heard to utter over the on-board comms: “Too many cooks...” 

In my interview with Ben Ainslie earlier in the week, the team boss acknowledged that his crew have been a bit off their game with the clarity of communication compared with last season. It appears there’s still work to be done.

So let me ask you, if you had a pick of Sweden, Switzerland, USA, Germany, France and Great Britain as the top two performing teams of the day in their group, who would you choose? Well you know already that it wasn’t GBR, but your two top teams from Group B’s practice racing are... Germany and Switzerland! Who would have thought? Well, perhaps Switzerland who have been hitting a good run of form lately, and were third in Portsmouth a year ago. But Germany, they’re the real surprise package from today.

As for the so-called Group of Death, with seven teams, no one dominated. But for my money the move of the day was when Spain rounded the bottom gate in sixth place. Purely by staying on the foils (in that classic windward heel and windward-bow-kissing-the-water mode that Diego Botin’s crew have perfected and others try to copy), Los Gallos straight-lined to the top of the course past their rivals who were struggling to maintain steady flight. Spain seized the lead and took the win across the finish line. It was impressive, even by their high standards.

Friday’s racing was in light, marginal foiling conditions. The forecast for proper racing over the weekend is for stronger. So how much will the results from practice day actually signify? Hopefully for the British, nothing whatsoever. Vice Admiral Nelson would be forgiven for turning a blind eye to what happened today.