Ineos Britannia Team LEQ12 took first flight unaided

There were no high fives just professional satisfaction today out in Palma as the INEOS Britannia Team took flight un-aided onboard the silver-liveried LEQ12 and very quickly, the multi gold-medallists Sir Ben Ainslie and Giles Scott, had her rocketing at 30 knots, offering up the very best Christmas present for all fans of the British team.

Stepping ashore, a relaxed Ainslie was full of praise for the whole team who have worked tirelessly to transform T6 from a data collection towing platform to a fully operational LEQ12 capable of flight, following the AC Rules Committee ruling that clarified towing masts and effectively outlawed them: “I'm sure there probably were a few little fist pumps going around. It's a big step combining America's Cup with Formula One and for a lot of those engineers to get their heads around what goes into a boat like this, getting systems operating and then getting it up to the point of flying. It’s a big step forward for the team but clearly a long way to go to get the boat fully operational.”

But INEOS Britannia, by taking flight, are very much at the races in this America’s Cup and with the considerable resources of Mercedes-AMG Applied Science behind them, any perceived gap will no doubt close up dramatically as the team works through the T6 nuances in the New Year. Ainslie was more than realistic about the task ahead, saying: “I think it's easy to forget just how complex these boats are, the systems that are going into them, and we are clearly taking a different step with this boat. It's taken a while to work through that, but we'll get there.”

And the sailing programme is intense for the team now, as Ainslie confirmed: “The operational capability of the boat is not where it needs to be currently so we're working through that. There’s a good squad on it and we'll get there…before we start going into some other testing protocols and testing schedules that we've got all the way through to next summer. It's a good step to get the boat foiling and then working through the testing schedule.”

Onboard today was Bleddyn Mon, one of the key sailor/designer cross-over team-members, as an additional person to the sailing works team of Ainslie, Scott, Iain Jensen and Luke Parkinson, keeping an eye on all the systems. Ainslie welcomed Mon’s input onboard saying: “It's nice if we can take a fifth person onboard the boat to give feedback to the Technical Group and also keep an eye out, especially in these early days, with the boat…because we're heads down sailing the boat and we potentially miss things…We’ve got a great sailing squad here so will start rotating those around a bit now that we're up and running.”

INEOS Britannia are “unlikely” to sail tomorrow according to Ben, but he signed off by wishing British fans and: “everyone watching have a good Christmas and all the best for the New Year.”