AC World Series moves on to France after Brit’s win at Portsmouth

PORTSMOUTH, England (LOG NEWS SERVICE) — Having concluded another successful event at Portsmouth in July the six teams participating in the America’s Cup World Series move on to the next event in the series scheduled at Toulon in southern France Sept. 9-11.

The five challenging teams participating in the World Series — a series of warmup regattas for the America’s Cup in 2017 — are competing for points. The top four challengers will face off in the World Series playoffs, which are scheduled next May in Bermuda, with the top challenger earning the right to challenge Oracle Team USA in June.

Defending champion Oracle Team USA, the sixth team participating in the present 2016 World Series, first won the America’s Cup in February 2010 in Valencia, Spain and successfully defended its title in September 2013 in San Francisco, in one of the most dramatic sporting comebacks in history. Oracle Team USA came back from an 8-1 deficit to beat Emirates Team New Zealand 9-8 and retain the America’s Cup.

British sailing star Sir Ben Ainslie’s Land Rover BAR team finished the two days of racing at Portsmouth with 82 points to top his opponents with a total score of 367 points and take over the lead in the 2016 series from the Kiwis. Ainslie’s team was followed by Oracle Team USA (366 points), Emirates Team New Zealand (357 points), SoftBank Team Japan (328 points), Sweden’s Artemis Racing (315 points) and Groupama Team France (282 points).

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge presented the trophy to Ainslie who was knighted following the London Olympics in 2012, where he won his fourth straight gold medal and fifth games medal overall.

America’s Cup officials recently announced that the final event of the 2016 series would be held in Fukuoka, Japan from November 18-20.

A report from The Associated Press was used in this story.