This morning, visitors of the V&A Waterfront Marina met a new tenant in the local America’s Cup Challenge base, Shoholoza. “movistar” is already in her cradler after her long trip from Puerto Real (Cádiz), and eager for backing in the water ahead of the beginning of the training in Cape Town’s waters.

After a long night of logistics operations to unload the boat, make final preparations and take the “movistar” from the marina up to her base, the shore crew started the final tuning of the boat this morning, thinking about the training in Cape Town’s waters.

“It is nice to have the boat here at last –said the movistar’s skipper Bouwe Bekking during the team’s meeting of this morning-. The hard work we did in Portimao and the huge effort mustered by everybody, have made possible the boat is in Cape Town eleven days before the inshore race will be sailed, so we will be able to sail here”.

“From Portimao to Cádiz, we hadn’t good conditions to sail, so it will be now when we really test the boat for the first time. But after seeing the repairs done I am sure that her is the same than before, or even better. When we will leave Cape Town on the second of January we will sail on the edge again, therefore this confidence will be indispensable”.

On Sunday, let’s back to the water

Bekking has confirmed to the crew that they will sail again this weekend. “If things run as we have planned, we hope to be in conditions to resume training on Sunday. Since that moment, we will have to sail as long as it is possible and try to have the boat on the edge, especially against the waves. It will be an intense training programme, and it’d include offshore sailing too”.

The plan for the team on the next weeks will be focused on sailing, but also on the physical training. “Until Sunday, we will have a really hard physical programme –says Xabi Fernández, movistar’s trimmer- that includes jogging early in the morning and gym in the afternoon. Once the boat will be in the water, we will return to the same training schedule we followed in Sanxenxo: gym early in the morning and sailing since midday”.