Sailing: Vital to carry on winning as the pressure mounts

The starting helmsman on GBR Challenge, Britain's America's Cup yacht, reflects on a successful week in the Louis Vuitton Cup

First and foremost there was the revenge. It is, as the saying goes, a dish best eaten cold, but there was a really warm feeling when we turned the tables on Stars & Stripes in our first outing of the second round robin of the Louis Vuitton Cup. We had always felt that this was a race in the first round we could have won and, in the America's Cup, you need to grab those opportunities every time.

We had marked it out as one of our prime round two targets, but we had to see how each boat would perform against the other, having made changes between rounds. It appears that the performance profiles crossed paths; we were quicker downwind, they were quicker upwind, but their skipper, Kenny Read, has since acknowledged that they have some issues to sort out.

In situations like that it is always difficult to work out how any changes are working out on the race course. Wind conditions change each day and luck plays its part. The syndicates all watch each other and pick up ideas; for instance, nearly everyone is now using a mast spreader extension system to support bigger headsail area.

That is one of a number of big changes Prada have made to their current race boat, and they may have something even bigger up their sleeves when they bring their second boat back from major surgery at the Cookson yard.

At the same time the current joint leaders, OneWorld, have started sailing their second boat out of the dock with a skirt to hide a new stern profile.

Our own second boat, GBR 78, is due to begin sailing again later this week and we are all very excited about its potential. We have made some changes from its initial design, knowing it will be race ready by the time the quarter-finals begin, and it adds a new weapon to our armoury.

On the wider front it was good to keep the winning streak going at a time when, although it looks as though the second round is just a repeat of the races in round one, there is a real feeling that the pressure is increasing. Walking up and down Halsey Street, home of all the challenger compounds as well as the New Zealand defenders, you can feel the tension.

For some the pressure has erupted in public. They will have to find their own solutions. For every other syndicate, the only change when that happens is how we conduct the analysis, how we prepares to race against that syndicate. Just as every coach and captain in, say, rugby will assess the state of each opponent before a game, so every syndicate will have assessed the characteristics of the rival boat and the people sailing it.

To be absolutely blunt, if any of us can see a crack in an opponent we are going to do everything we can to exploit it to our advantage. There are provisos, though. The idea is very much to keep our eye on the ball, to play our own game, and not allow in any way any rushes of blood to the head.

Everyone can see the value of a top four slot at the end of these two rounds robin. We believe our overall strategy has served us very well to date. There is a real sense of cohesion. With the present run of form, confidence has grown, but at the same time expectations have been raised. That means there is more pressure, both from within and from the public, so there is a double-edged sword effect from a run of success.

Nor is it easy to keep that momentum going when the Auckland weather keeps intervening. While I have a lot of sympathy for the race officers, it is always more difficult to put together a decent innings when the covers are being rushed on to the pitch every other hour. I guess it is the same for everyone. The answer is to stay open-minded and flexible, to keep the fitness and focus levels up, and to say a special thank you when the decision to abandon is taken early enough to avoid having to do the long tow out to the race track.

Andy Beadsworth was talking to Stuart Alexander