Artemis Racing out for now...

Artemis Racing, Sweden’s entry in the 34th America‘s Cup, will skip the opening races of the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger series as it continues to recover from the fatal capsize of its first boat last month.

On the America’s Cup web site, Artemis said it planned to launch its new 72-foot catamaran in early July and be ready to race by the end of the month on San Francisco Bay. “When the sailing team is satisfied that the boat can be pushed hard in race conditions, it will join the competition,” the team said.

Strategist Andrew “Bart” Simpson died May 9 when the team’s 72-foot catamaran capsized in practice, trapping him under the wreckage.

The Louis Vuitton Cup for challengers is scheduled to begin July 7. So Artemis will miss much of the round-robin competition, which will start with just Italy’s Luna Rossa Challenge and Emirates Team New Zealand.
“We are working around-the-clock to get our new boat ready, in the water and to prepare our team to race,” Artemis CEO Paul Cayard said. “We still have a mountain to climb, but our plan is to launch our new boat in early July and get ourselves in a position where we can race by the end of the month.”

America‘s Cup officials weren’t immediately available for comment.

The question is will they ever compete? They will need to train on the boat all July so they can race, plus they will have no practice with other boats. It will be every hard for the team to mount a true challenge.