ACWS SF: Quotes of the Day Saturday
From the Skippers
Match Race Semi-Finals and Fleet Races 5 and 6
August 25, 2012
Somebody's upside down. Or backwards. Oracle Spithill goes
his own way, winning Fleet Race 6.
Photo:©2012 ACEA/Gilles
Martin-Raget
America’s Cup World Series San Francisco
Day Four: Match Race Semi-Finals and Fleet Races 5 and 6
Terry Hutchinson, Artemis
Racing White
This is about as tricky as we see San Francisco Bay. It
was a bit of an up-and-down day for us. We sailed a great match race
against Russell. He was bang on at the start and we were about an
eighth of a length back, but that was a big difference maker. It’ll
be interesting to watch the replay and see what we could have done
differently. He was in such a bad spot and I made the decision to
race to block him out and he got to it just at that annoying time as
we were about to run into him.
Russell Coutts, Oracle Team
USA
This is the second event in a row that we’ve both made the
match racing final, so were happy with that. One of the critical
moments in the race with Artemis is that we got underneath them a
little early, which made it pretty easy for us, actually. We were
struggling with our speed into the wind all day, we’ll have to look at
that tonight. They caught us at the gate and we had a really close
situation. We were inside and were able to roll over the top of them
and go around. And that was it.
Yann Guichard, Energy Team
Nothing really changed, but the start changed! Two good
starts today. When you’re on the leaderboard, it’s easier to
decide if you want the left side or the right side or what gate you
want, because that was one of the keys.
Jimmy Spithill, Oracle Team
USA
On his appearance with the San Francisco Giants: The first pitch at AT&T Park was way more stressful than
the racing! I threw a strike. I had a few warm-ups at the base this
morning and got some tips from [Giants pitcher] Matt Cain. He said
'whatever you do, don’t let it hit the dirt.' But he showed me the grip
and told me to let it rip. To be in the Giants clubhouse like that
was such an opportunity. And JK [John Kostecki] is from San Francisco
and a huge Giants fan, he was like a kid on Christmas in there.
See Photos at AT&T Park and Read Team Press Release
On pasting the Fleet in Race 6: I finally got my act together on the start line and we were able to get off in decent shape. I thought our speed and crew work were second to none. JK has been on fire, in tune with the wind and allowing us to stretch our legs and get away. To be honest, I felt I was off on my form a little bit today and was carried by the rest of the guys, but that’s the beauty of the team. The guys picked me up and we got back into it.
Nathan Outteridge, Team
Korea
We’ve got a good chance tomorrow. We’ve sailed well all
week and consistency has been paying for us. We just have to hope
Jimmy doesn’t have a great race tomorrow! We have to get a few boats
between us and him -- one small error, one OCS, one penalty and you’re
a long way out the back.
But half the battle was staying away from the other
boats. In the first run, we saw four of them were crossing us, so we
made sure we just went behind them. As we did, we got a puff, so we
had a really good lane coming into the mark. Sometimes there’s luck
involved. I hit the boundary at a certain point and if they had laid
the mark, we would have been sixth around the bottom mark. This
racing is about being smart, but there’s luck involved.
--Diane Swintal for CupInfo/©2012 CupInfo.com