{"id":156631,"date":"2025-02-05T06:01:40","date_gmt":"2025-02-05T06:01:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/?p=156631"},"modified":"2025-05-28T09:52:27","modified_gmt":"2025-05-28T08:52:27","slug":"freddie-carr-20-years-trying-to-win-the-americas-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/americas-cup\/freddie-carr-20-years-trying-to-win-the-americas-cup-156631","title":{"rendered":"Freddie Carr: 20 years trying to win the America’s Cup"},"content":"\u201cFor 23 years I have had the privilege to call myself an America\u2019s Cup<\/a> sailor, but today is the last day of that for me. The body says it\u2019s time to stop. I am done,\u201d wrote David Carr<\/a> \u2013 or Freddie, as everyone knows him \u2013 on 19 October this year.\r\n\r\nThe day INEOS Britannia<\/a> bowed out of the 37th America\u2019s Cup<\/a> as Emirates Team New Zealand<\/a> took victory marked the end of the third consecutive British campaign, and almost 10 years of trying (the British team did vow to continue on, though a recent high profile split<\/a> has called into question the future of the British challenge).\r\n\r\nThough for Freddie, and many others in Barcelona last summer, it has been a much longer process even that that.\r\n\r\nCarr did not come from the Olympic pathway, as many Cup sailors do, but from crewing in dinghies he moved to match racing, and began a livelong love affair with the America\u2019s Cup. \u201cI was a reasonable Laser sailor, but never going to set the world on fire,\u201d he recalls.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhen I was 15, I started sailing with Mark Campbell-James in First Class 8s, doing the match racing circuit around Europe. I just loved the teamwork aspect.\r\n\r\n\u201cFrom there, we won the Youth Match Racing Nationals. That year, in 2000, the Youth Match Racing Worlds were in Auckland. We won, and our coach was Bill Edgerton. A week later, he was umpiring in the America\u2019s Cup. So we went out in the umpire RIB with him, and watched the Louis Vuitton final between America One and Prada, which just blew my mind.\r\n\r\n\"I remember they went downwind, overlapped the whole way, and [Paul] Cayard was screaming at his trimmer, trying to gybe to break and re-establish overlaps. I was only 17 at the time, and I just thought, \u2018This is the coolest thing ever.\u2019\u201d\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_156636\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"\" \u2018The collective effort that had to be put in every day to get faster, I\u2019m just so proud of that\u2019. Photo: Ricardo Pinto\/America\u2019s Cup[\/caption]\r\n

Nipper\u2019s induction<\/h2>\r\nFollowing the 2000 Cup, Sir Peter Harrison launched his GBR Challenge, with Ian Walker as team boss.\r\n\r\n\u201cI called him up and said, \u2018Look, I just want to come and help. I\u2019ve got a year off, I don\u2019t want to get paid.\u2019 I went there as the absolute nipper, the lowest of the low. I had the worst jobs you could imagine,\u201d he recalls, including painstaking hours peeling stickers from sails inherited from other teams.\r\n\r\n\u201cBut eventually, I got on the RIB, then I got on the boat. That summer, it was the America\u2019s Cup Jubilee. We raced Prada and Team New Zealand, and that was me hooked.\r\n\r\n\u201cThen we travelled down to Auckland for 2003. I was learning from the very best British yachtsmen, guys who were probably on the forefront of professional sailing.\r\n\r\n\u201cI was getting NZ$500 a month, which at the time was about \u00a3180. I was working seven days a week, 14 hours a day, but I just didn\u2019t care.\r\n\r\n\"When people ask \u2018What set you up to be where you are today?\u2019 That was it. Those two years working with Simon Fry, James Stagg, Ian Walker, Ado Stead... all of them. I\u2019m so grateful to that generation for teaching me so well.\u201d\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_156646\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"\" GBR Challenge, Britain\u2019s entry for the 2002 America\u2019s Cup. Photo: Clive Mason\/Allsport\/Getty[\/caption]\r\n\r\nFreddie\u2019s apprenticeship wasn\u2019t only in sailing. As the youngest and, by his own admission, one of the most annoying members of the team, he also got a thorough induction into British sporting culture.\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019ve always had a bit of a sharp wit on me. But I definitely over-stepped the mark and wound up the old guys. If I was particularly cheeky, they\u2019d put me in a spinnaker bag and hoist me up into the roof and then hit me with inflatable battens like I was a pinata!\r\n\r\n\u201cEvery time I was walking down the dock at the end of the day, I would get pushed in the water. I was the team whipping boy, but there is a really fun Mickey-taking culture in all sports teams.\r\n\r\n\"I\u2019ve always said to the new lads [in INEOS Britannia], it\u2019s when I\u2019m not taking the p*ss out of you is when you\u2019re in trouble. When British people are taking the Mickey out of you, you\u2019re loved and liked.\u201d\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_156647\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"\" Britain\u2019s proposed Challenge for the 33rd Cup, Team Origin. Photo: Kos Picture Source\/Getty[\/caption]\r\n

Band back together<\/h2>\r\nThe GBR Challenge disbanded, scattering into the 11 other teams in Valencia in 2007 \u2013 Carr to the Swedish Victory Challenge.\r\n\r\nThe net result: key GBR players were learning from other team\u2019s approaches and banking valuable information. Ainslie was part of Team New Zealand, gaining insight into that squad \u2013 and them into him \u2013 both referred back to during the 2024 Cup.\r\n\r\nBriefly, it looked as if the British Olympic sailing powerhouse, combined with improved Cup experience, could combine to make a seriously competitive challenge.\r\n\r\n\u201cOn the back of the \u201807 Cup was when Sir Keith Mills started Team Origin<\/a>, for the 33rd America\u2019s Cup.\r\n\r\n\u201cI genuinely think that was the best team I ever sailed with,\u201d says Carr. \u201cWe took core talent out of Alinghi and Team New Zealand.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe had a sailing squad of 20 guys, six of which were America\u2019s Cup Hall of Famers. We had this incredible afterguard with Ben [Ainslie] driving, Iain [Percy] doing tactics, and Bart [Andrew Simpson] doing strategy.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhen Team Origin folded, because it was clear that we were going to go to a Deed of Gift match, I actually had a little cry because I knew that group would disband and not sail together again. So whenever I look back at my America\u2019s Cup career, that\u2019s the one that got away.\u201d\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_156633\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"\" Winning the iShares Cup with Oman Sail\u2019s Extreme 40 catamaran Masira \u2013 and gaining invaluable experience for when the America\u2019s Cup turned to multihulls. Photo: Thierry Martinez\/Sea&Co[\/caption]\r\n

Multihull experiment<\/h2>\r\nWith the prospect of another British Cup bid faltering, Carr was among the diverse group of sailors who jumped into the Extreme Sailing Series. Carr recalls the stadium-style racing in multihulls<\/a> seemed like an enjoyable distraction at the time.\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019d never sailed a catamaran, but it sounded great fun. I joined it as a break away from traditional keel boat sailing. Then, six years later, it turned into what the America\u2019s Cup was<\/a>.\r\n\r\n\u201cLuckily, I teamed up with Chris Draper on Oman Sail, and we went on to win the series in \u201809. A year later, all the Cup teams joined, and we were right in the thick of it.\u201d\r\n\r\nWith the Cup hurtling into its multihull era, good Extreme 40 crews found themselves in demand. \u201cAt the beginning of 2011, Prada announced they were going to [challenge for] the 34th America\u2019s Cup. Myself and Chris joined Prada on the back of our Extreme Sailing Series win, to go and sail their World Series catamarans in 2012-13.\r\n\r\n\"We ended up \u2013 amazingly \u2013 winning the America\u2019s Cup World Series, which was my first taste of winning stuff in the Cup. And then we went on to sail the big catamarans in San Fran.\u201d\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_156648\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"\" Team Luna Rossa\u2019s AC72 in San Francisco in 2013. Photo: Josh Edelson\/AFP\/Getty[\/caption]\r\n\r\nBut Cup sailing suffered a huge loss in San Francisco, with the death of Andrew \u2018Bart\u2019 Simpson<\/a> when the Artemis Racing catamaran capsized and broke up in an accident while training in 2013. For many, the Cup lost some of its allure after the tragedy.\r\n\r\n\u201cBart was [central] throughout my career so far,\u201d recalls Carr. \u201cHe was the guy that said to me, \u2018Look, you\u2019re good, but you\u2019re not going to be an Olympic sailor. You should look at match racing because I think you could be an amazing crew and team player.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u201cHis death was a huge pivotal moment in safety around sailing. Sadly, it took that accident for us to wake up and see that we were miles behind in terms of safety protocols because the boats were just getting fast for the first time.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhenever Ben and I have a beer we often reminisce about Bart, still. The day we won the Louis Vuitton final, afterwards a few of us were telling Bart stories. That\u2019s how he sits with us all on the big days.\u201d\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_156638\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"\" Racing in the America\u2019s Cup World Series at Gothenburg, Sweden. Photo: Mark Lloyd\/Lloyd Images[\/caption]\r\n

Flying the flag<\/h2>\r\nAfter Oracle Team USA\u2019s astonishing comeback<\/a> win in San Francisco, with Ainslie calling tactics, the door reopened for a British bid for the 35th Cup.\r\n\r\n\u201cI had a conversation with Ben where he said, \u2018Look, Freds, there\u2019s a chance that we could get a British Challenger off the ground here.\u2019 But I\u2019d re-signed to go with Luna Rossa, I\u2019d be giving up a guaranteed thing.\r\n\r\n\u201cI ummed and ahhed about it for a while. Something [my wife] Bianca said stuck with me was \u2018How would you feel if there was a British challenge, and they went on to win it?\u2019 That was it. I spent the next year in a tiny office in Whiteley Business Park.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe had a sailing team of six that sailed this small test boat, T1, out of a tent in Southampton. Ben and Jo Grindley<\/a> spent the best part of 2014 stomping the pavements of London, trying to drum up sponsorship, which they did unbelievably well. And by the end of 2015, we were fully funded in our big base in Portsmouth.\u201d\r\n\r\nFor Carr, the beginning of the 35th Cup also signalled the beginning of a brutal physical training regime, a workload he maintained for 10 years. It began with shedding 10kg in six months to join the BAR squad.\r\n\r\nHe went on to compete in two Cup cycles as a grinder, endlessly spinning a pedestal winch to produce hydraulic power, before pivoting to become a cyclor. It required a total shift from the old-school \u2018big boat\u2019 mentality.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_156641\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"\" INEOS winter training in Cagliari, Italy. Photo: Mark Lloyd\/Lloyd Images[\/caption]\r\n\r\n\u201cIn the last 15 years I\u2019ve been on a total fitness and health journey, and I really value what it\u2019s done to my mental and physical well-being. I\u2019ve loved setting myself targets outside sailing that give me a bit of motivation to go the extra mile.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe get fitness tested every quarter within the Cup world, so that\u2019s my job. But I decided to make fitness my hobby as well, to run ultra-duathlons and marathons. I rowed at the British Indoor Rowing Championship. I did bike races as soon as the Cup went into cycling.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe way I\u2019ve always looked at it is how lucky am I to be getting paid to be fit and healthy?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut my God, it\u2019s hard,\u201d he admits. \u201cIn the last two years, I was so glad we moved away from grinding into a hydraulic pump, because my shoulders and my wrists would not stop clicking. My shoulders had given up the ghost after 20 years.\u201d\r\n\r\nWith the 37th Cup came a shift to hours instead on a bike, but Carr was also working hard to hold back the years. He pledged to team boss Ainslie that he\u2019d hit the team\u2019s fitness benchmark on his 40th birthday.\r\n\r\n\u201cI gave myself four months to get that number. I trained like a pro cyclist, and I was a misery to live with! But I got the number.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_156644\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"\" Cyclor training required hours on static and road bikes. Photo: Cameron Gregory\/INEOS Britannia[\/caption]\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s certainly been harder training for this cycle than the previous ones. When I was with BAR, I could do hard session after hard session. I was the fittest lad back then, and I would really enjoy beating the others. Now I\u2019m at the other end of the scale where I was just so happy to be hanging onto these lads\u2019 coats tails for this last cycle.\r\n\r\n\"I\u2019ve had to really adjust my psyche. I\u2019ve gone from trying to be an alpha male, to just trying to beat myself every day.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe training regime was just the start. In the heat of battle \u2013 literally \u2013 the cyclors had one of the toughest physical challenges in sailing. \u201cThe environment that we\u2019re operating in is not pleasant,\u201d Carr said with some understatement.\r\n\r\nRacing over the sweltering Barcelona summer, the cyclors deliberately lowered their core body temperature by wearing ice vests, drinking frozen slushies and dousing their skin with alcoholic sprays. \u201cYou want to get onto the boat shivering,\u201d explained Carr. Their core temperature would rise by 4 degrees to over 40\u00b0C over the course of a race.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe\u2019re loaded into a little carbon box with no airflow and have to maintain clarity of thought to help get this boat around the course, while getting shaken around.\u201d\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_156643\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"\" Riding with the INEOS Grenadiers cycling team. Photo: Chris Auld Photography[\/caption]\r\n\r\nTo make it even harder, each grinder is operating in near isolation. \u201cEven in the first version of the AC75s<\/a>, we were in a trench with human contact.\r\n\r\n\"I could look down my line of grinders and get a head nod, or I could see where Ben was turning the wheel. You can take all of these visual clues, and that human interaction where you can build energy. In Version 2 of the 75s, we\u2019re each in our individual pods. And that\u2019s been hard for me.\r\n\r\n\u201cBut actually the skill in being a cyclor is knowing when not to max out. It\u2019s about recognising that you\u2019ve just tacked off on the right-hand boundary, and you\u2019re on a right shift. So you\u2019re going to be on that daggerboard for 90 seconds. You trim back down, settle the boat. You\u2019ve then got 45 seconds where we can return to baseline and suck up some oxygen.\r\n\r\n\"And that\u2019s the skill. In recognising when not to be at max heart rate, so when you arrive at the windward mark, you can really put some watts down. That\u2019s one of the biggest things we had to teach the rowers, because they\u2019ve drilled their whole lives to go and rail it!\u201d\r\n\r\nCarr was one of two squads of cyclors which the INEOS Britannia team rotated, including switching out their custom-fit \u2018bike\u2019 seats and frames between races. The last race he took part in was on 16 October, the day Britain took two America\u2019s Cup race wins<\/a> against Emirates Team New Zealand. It was a moment he says 17 year-old teenage Carr in Auckland would never have believed.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_156637\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"\" INEOS Britannia battling it out with Emirates Team New Zealand off Barcelona during Race 7 of the 37th America\u2019s Cup. ETNZ went on to win the Cup 7-2. Photo: Ricardo Pinto\/America\u2019s Cup[\/caption]\r\n\r\n\u201cOf this campaign, I\u2019m honestly just so proud. From the end of the prelims to the end of the Louis Vuitton final<\/a>, the collective effort that close to 150 people had to put in every day to get faster, I\u2019m just so proud of that.\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd it was harder than I ever thought it would be. I still don\u2019t think I\u2019ve quite got my head around the effort that was required to get us to the Match.\u201d\r\n\r\nIn the immediate future, Carr will be swapping clip-in cycling shoes for more conventional sailing boots. \u201cI\u2019m going to go actual sailing \u2013 TP sailing, Mini Maxi sailing. I\u2019m not going to go cycling on a boat at 55 knots!\r\n\r\n\u201cBut I\u2019m still going to stay involved in the Cup. What that looks like, I don\u2019t quite know yet. I would love to stay involved with the British Challenge and help bring on the next generation of sailors into this world because I think I\u2019ve got a pretty unique set of skills that can help that.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere\u2019s absolutely no way I can walk away from this thing that has been my life for 20 years.\u201d\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\n

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\u201cFor 23 years I have had the privilege to call myself an America\u2019s Cup sailor, but today is the last day of that for me. The body says it\u2019s time to stop. I am done,\u201d wrote David Carr \u2013 or Freddie, as everyone knows him \u2013 on 19 October this year. The day INEOS Britannia bowed out of the 37th America\u2019s Cup as Emirates Team New Zealand took victory marked the end of the third consecutive British campaign, and almost 10 years of trying (the British team did vow to continue on, though a recent high profile split has called into question the future of the British challenge). Though for Freddie, and many others in Barcelona last summer, it has been a much longer process even that that. Carr did not come from the Olympic pathway, as many Cup sailors do, but from crewing in dinghies he moved to match racing, and began a livelong love affair with the America\u2019s Cup. \u201cI was a reasonable Laser sailor, but never going to set the world on fire,\u201d he recalls. \u201cWhen I was 15, I started sailing with Mark Campbell-James in First Class 8s, doing the match racing circuit around Europe. I just loved the teamwork aspect. \u201cFrom there, we won the Youth Match Racing Nationals. That year, in 2000, the Youth Match Racing Worlds were in Auckland. We won, and our coach was Bill Edgerton. A week later, he was umpiring in the America\u2019s Cup. So we went out in the umpire RIB with him, and watched the Louis Vuitton final between America One and Prada, which just blew my mind. “I remember they went downwind, overlapped the whole way, and [Paul] Cayard was screaming at his trimmer, trying to gybe to break and re-establish overlaps. I was only 17 at the time, and I just thought, \u2018This is the coolest thing ever.\u2019\u201d Nipper\u2019s induction Following the 2000 Cup, Sir Peter Harrison launched his GBR Challenge, with Ian Walker as team boss. \u201cI called him up and said, \u2018Look, I just want to come and help. I\u2019ve got a year off, I don\u2019t want to get paid.\u2019 I went there as the absolute nipper, the lowest of the low. I had the worst jobs you could imagine,\u201d he recalls, including painstaking hours peeling stickers from sails inherited from other teams. \u201cBut eventually, I got on the RIB, then I got on the boat. That summer, it was the America\u2019s Cup Jubilee. We raced Prada and Team New Zealand, and that was me hooked. \u201cThen we travelled down to Auckland for 2003. I was learning from the very best British yachtsmen, guys who were probably on the forefront of professional sailing. \u201cI was getting NZ$500 a month, which at the time was about \u00a3180. I was working seven days a week, 14 hours a day, but I just didn\u2019t care. “When people ask \u2018What set you up to be where you are today?\u2019 That was it. Those two years working with Simon …Continue reading »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1571,"featured_media":156635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[687],"tags":[2505,569,1633],"review_manufacturer":[],"acf":[],"introduction":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156631"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1571"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156631"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":158184,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156631\/revisions\/158184"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156631"},{"taxonomy":"review_manufacturer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review_manufacturer?post=156631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}