Jimmy Spithill admits his first experience on a simulator made him sick with envy at Team New Zealand.
Spithill says Team New Zealand’s use of the artificial racing tool was a key to their America’s Cup win in Bermuda in 2017 where they trounced his Oracle Team USA in the Final, which ended Bermuda’s chances of hosting the 2021 event.
Now with Italian syndicate Luna Rossa, Spithill has been maximizing the use of their simulator, realizing what he missed out on at the last Cup.
Claims were made in the lead up to the 2017 Americas Cup in Bermuda, reports suggested that if Spithill reclaimed the title his was looking to defend it again in Bermuda, the defeat however in the final never allowed anyone to find out if that would have happened or not.
The Italian simulator has been constructed with the help of some of the engineers who were in the Emirates Team New Zealand camp last time and Spithill admitted to American publication Sailing World the first time he used it he left feeling sick.
That had nothing to do with motion sickness it was because he "realised how far behind the rest of us were by not having this tool last campaign, and instantly regretted not pushing harder to develop one then.”
Spithill said the Bermuda loss still burns at him after he helped Oracle win the 2010 and 2013 editions.
“I don’t ever let any loss go,” he told Sailing World.
“Defeat is nothing but education. We were too conservative in Bermuda. Sometimes success can do that to a team. We were going for third win in a row, and it was a trap we fell into that we were not aggressive enough with our approach.
"Their campaign was anything but conservative. Personally, I didn’t go with my instincts enough, on or off the water, and we made key decisions early on in the campaign that affected the end result.”
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