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Auckland, February 1, 2009
In typical fashion, Auckland’s weather wreaked a bit of havoc on Day Three of the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series. With wind speeds expected to hit 25 knots in the afternoon, organizers condensed the race schedule in order to get four races in before the worst of the wind hit. Cloudy and drizzling when the day began in 15 knots of breeze, the marquee matchup of the day was Alinghi versus Team Origin. Fans listening to the radio broadcast heard Emirates Team New Zealand’s Grant Dalton give his take on the two skippers’ starting strategies: “Ben Ainslie is pretty aggressive, whereas Ed Baird usually follows the same pattern, more time on distance.” That was a bang-on assessment, as Origin pushed Alinghi through the prestart to the back of the starting box. Alinghi tacked to starboard heading toward the line, but Origin was able to tack to leeward of Alinghi, who was coming a bit early to the line. Team Origin held Alinghi above the line at the gun, with Alinghi over early and Origin heading up the course enroute to what look a comfortable win. Mike Sanderson (Origin) and Warwick Fleury (Alinghi) had similar versions of the eventful start. “Ben did a fantastic job working with the guys in the back of the boat,” said Mike Sanderson, Origin. “We were pretty keen to push them in that direction in this much breeze, making it hard for them to get back behind the line. When we closed down on them, we had to push them over or it would have been a pretty bad start for us.” Warwick Fleury of Alinghi had thought his boat was in a good position, only to have Origin take the position away from them. The British yacht tacking underneath Alinghi was unexpected. "We were surprised they were able to do that. I don’t know if they’d have been able to do that if we were in our boat. It put us in a pretty vulnerable position."
In what turned out to be the last race of the day, BMW Oracle took on China Team, the Americans hoping to get a point on the board after losing to Emirates Team New Zealand on Saturday. It was decided, as Ian Williams’ China Team earned a penalty in the pre-start for gybing too close to BMW Oracle. Adding insult to injury was a spinnaker explosion on China Team as they came down to the finish -- teams are concerned about these paper-thin spinnakers, as something as simple as catching the spinnaker between your foot and the non-skid on the deck during a drop can tear a kite. In fact, Greek Challenge achieved a milestone on Saturday launching and dropping a kite without tearing it. -- Reporting by Diane Swintal for CupInfo/©2009 CupInfo Links of Interest: CupInfo's Main Louis Vuitton Pacific Series page Visit the Official Louis Vuiton Pacific Series Web Site |
