By Colin Thompson

Sailing Correspondent

Iain Percy, the sailing team manager and tactician of Artemis Racing, is champing at the bit to fly around the Great Sound in the team’s turbo-charged wing-sail foiling AC45S catamaran.

The Swedish challenger for the 35th America’s Cup have all but completed reassembling their multihull boat at their Dockyard base which is scheduled to be launched this week.

“We will be out this week which is just an incredible effort,” Percy, the multiple Olympic gold medallist and world and European Star Class champion, said.

“To think we were sailing a month ago in San Francisco and now we are going to be sailing here just shows one of the real difference makers of our team. Our shore team are the best in the business!

“The sailing team is getting a buzz about going out in the water. It’s going to be the first time we can see the bottom [of the sea], having sailed in the muddy waters of San Francisco for the last year and a half.

“We’ve been out in the smaller boats and it’s just a beautiful place to sail. You have tropical reefs, turquoise water and good wind.

“It’s a buzz for anyone and we don’t get to do this very often.”

Artemis will become the second team behind Oracle Team USA, the America’s Cup defender, to launch their AC45S in Bermuda.

Both teams trained together in San Francisco before moving their operations to Bermuda in preparation for the “Auld Mug” in 2017.

“We sailed with them for about three weeks in San Francisco which was good and we enjoy racing with them,” Percy added.

“I think by the end of the next month or so you will see two of these amazing boats racing on the Great Sound. They are an incredible boat on their own but when you see two of them pushing each other it’s a really special thing.”

The America’s Cup Class catamarans are expected to exceed the speeds achieved by the larger AC72 at the previous America’s Cup.

“They are really the fastest boats on a windward-leeward course ever to be created — even compared to the AC72,” Percy said.

“These smaller boats, as they develop and the skills develop, the level just gets higher and higher and for those lucky enough to get out on the water over the next month are seeing a new generation of boat.

“Sailing it blows me away every time. For those who haven’t seen this develop over the last year, it is something they will never forget.”