ACWS, Plymouth se prepara

Fuente info AC34

PLYMOUTH SET-UP ADVANCES
POSTED ON 26 AUGUST 2011

Construction of the Race Village for the America's Cup World Series in Plymouth has started this week, with containers being unloaded and moved into place and bases beginning to take shape.

Download a PDF map of the site.

This week more than 100 containers were offloaded from the cargo ship HR Constitution and have been placed around the Race Village area. Team containers are in place so that team bases can be built, while over on the Hoe, all of the ACTV containers will be set up over the weekend and into next week. The sail loft and ACRM base are already up.

"It's felt like hard work, but if you consider the number of days in which we've been working and what's been achieved, it's all gone well and according to plan," said Peter Ansell, on-shore operations director. "This has been the first big move and we've learned some lessons that we can apply going forward too."

The ship, having unloaded its containers, is now anchored off the Hoe in Plymouth Sound and is beginning to offload the regatta boats (apart from some RIBs which are in containers) directly into the water.

Over the weekend and next week, the AC45 platforms will undergo similar treatment. Although the AC45 can be broken down to fit into a 40-foot container, for this journey, the catamaran platforms remained intact and were stacked on the ship. This saves the teams time on both ends, in taking apart and re-assembling the platforms.

"We have promised the teams they'll be able to start operating here by the 29th and we'll have facilities for them to begin sailing, should they choose to do so, by September 1st," Ansell said.