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Auckland, February 9, 2009
Race One: Alinghi vs. Luna Rossa After a relatively short
delay, it was game on between the top and the bottom ranked-teams of the
Gold Fleet. After a two minute dial-up and the now standard journey to
the back of the start box, the two boats gybed into a split tack start.
Tacking up the first beat, Luna Rossa was able to squeeze ahead –- but
when the teams converged, Alinghi did not tack away. Ed Baird was able to
stay on the weather hip of the Italian boat and slowly rolled past,
leading into the top mark –- a lead Alinghi would not relinquish.
Race Two: Team Shosholoza vs. Greek Challenge Organizers decided to run this sail-off today, a sort of consolation race for 8th and 9th place, rather than making the teams wait until later in the week when the weather forecast is not looking good. Greek Challenge skipper Gavin Brady got the better of Shosholoza’s Paolo Cian early, chasing the the South African team into a dangerous position at the pin as the gun fired. Both teams untangled themselves to turn back toward the start, with the Greeks a boat length ahead. On the run, Greek
Challenge inexplicably let Shosholoza get away to a huge separation on the
left. The gamble paid for Shosholoza, who caught the Greek team on
the run and stayed with them up the next beat. But passing lanes are
few on these short courses and the South Africans only hope was to catch
Brady out on a port/starboard call at the mark, but to no avail.
Race Three: Damiani Italia vs. Team Origin With both boats circling
through the pre-start and heading to the line virtually together, it
looked to be a close contest. But it was not to be, Ben Ainslie was over
early and had to return. The Origin tried to claw their way back but the
upstart Brits could not catch the upstart Italians. Race Four: BMW Oracle Racing vs. Emirates Team New Zealand Coutts versus Barker Round Two -- both boats headed to the very back of the start area before coming back into a dial up. ETNZ peeled away with BMW Oracle following and circling, until the boats switched positions, BMW Oracle heading to the right side of the box and the Kiwis just behind and to leeward. Clearly, Russell Coutts wanted the left to start and got it, with Dean Barker tacking to port at the line. With both boats heading out to port, BMW Oracle got the lift they expected and got the lead, protected their preferred side, and stretched that lead all around the course to the finish. Also on this page: ETNZ Press Release
-- Reporting by Diane Swintal for CupInfo/©2009
CupInfo |
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Race Reports:
Rounds Robin
1 and 2: |
"ETNZ-BMW Oracle Details: Choppy and windy conditions. After the start ETNZ on the right, BMW Oracle on the left, narrow lead to BMW Oracle. Wind fills and lifts from the left and Oracle gains. 22 seconds for BMW at the first windward. Bear away spinnaker sets, right shift down the run aids BMW Oracle. BMW takes the right gate, ETNZ trails by several lengths. ETNZ onto starboard and BMW covers. They trade several tacks, BMW protecting the left. Starboard layline comes and Oracle controls. Delta 32 seconds at the second windward mark. Little opportunity to attack here, 180m gap. 27 seconds finish delta to BMW Oracle. See BMW Oracle Race Ticker for more |
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Damiani Italia
Does it Better Namely the passage to the quarter-finals of the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series, the success of Damiani Italy Challenge over Team Origin in the last match of the second Round Robin. The team of Vasco Vascotto took advantage thanks to the error committed on start by British crew, against whom it was required to win in order to be counted among the best of the event with Emirates Team New Zealand, already up in LVPS final, Alinghi, already up in the final of the challengers, and BMW Oracle Racing. Put under pressure by Damiani Italy Challenge, Ben Ainslie, four Olympic medals, lifted the bow with a slight advance, finishing in OCS (On the Course Side, early departure) for a couple of seconds. Nothing in daily life, a life in the world of sailing, where, to be in race again, you must return with the boat behind the starting line Ahead of a hundred meters after a few minutes, the Italian team has raced with an eye always turned to the opponent's moves and has the content back through a series of tactical choices and successful maneuvers without smudges. The announcement of worsening weather situation has prompted the Organizing Committee to anticipate the Sail Off race and quarter finals. Tomorrow, in fact, Damiani Italy Challenge will return between the buoys in a race dry access to the semifinals of the challenger against the winner of the match between Team Origin and Anglo-Chinese of China Team, led by twice world match racing champion, Ian Williams Vasco Vascotto, tactician
and skipper of Italy Damiani Challenge: "The race was really on the wire.
The boys of Team Origin are used to win Olympic medals, and view the
stake, have approached the match with the same spirit which face a Medal
Race. We beat a team of that magnitude and earn the respect of many
important team. The crew is sailing with enthusiasm and are doing well.
When you need to call a difficult maneuver, such as Sandokan, because the
wind blows left and I had moved to the right, and they make it absolutely
perfect, everything is easier." |
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Cup Racers are Ready for Challenger
Sail-off Racing in the Challenger Sail-off stage of the Louis Vuitton Pacific Cup takes place on Auckland's Waitemata Harbor tomorrow following the completion of Gold Fleet competition today. Two sudden-death races will be sailed to decide which boats will go through to complete the lineup for the challenger quarter finals. In competition today, Switzerland's Alinghi won her fourth Gold Fleet race to cement her already-confirmed top seeding and an automatic berth in the challenger final. She won handily against the Italian boat Luna Rossa. Newcomer Damiani Italia Challenge scored an upset victory over British Olympic medalist Ben Ainslie on Team Origin after he broke the start line and had to return to restart. The victory guaranteed Damiani a place in the first quarter final on Wednesday Host team Emirates Team New Zealand sailed in their final race before taking their place as a Louis Vuitton Pacific Series finalist next Saturday but succumbed to their old nemesis Russell Coutts at the wheel of BMW Oracle Racing. Oracle's win took them to a berth in the other quarter final on Wednesday. Team Origin will race tomorrow against France's seventh-seeded Pataugas K-Challenge to decide the quarter finalist to meet Damiani Italia Challenge. In the other match, Luna Rossa will race against sixth-seeded China Team for the right to race against BMW Oracle Racing in the other quarter final. The eighth and ninth
seeds, Greek Challenge and Team Shosholoza sailed their final match today
to determine their final placing in the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series. The
newcomer Greek Team, skippered by Kiwi Gavin Brady won, to place ninth
overall. The South African Team Shosholoza with Italian match racer Paolo
Cian at the helm is tenth overall. |
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Team Origin Move Forward into Challenger Sail-Off in 4th Seed Position Team Origin completed Round Robin two today after a controversial race against Damiani Italia and move into the Challenger Sail-Off Round in 4th seed position to meet Patuagas K Challenge (7th Seed) tomorrow morning. With two teams now out of the competition (Greek Challenge and Shosholoza), the next 5 days will be action packed where we will see the competitors go from seven in number down to one overall winner Today was the last day of the second Round Robin and the wind decided to play ball. Race one of the day was between Alinghi and Luna Rossa and Alinghi took a decisive win leaving them with an impressive maximum 4 points from Round Robin 2. The second race of the day was the sail off for 8th and 9th place between the Greek Challenge and Shosholoza. A challenging pre-start maneuver allowed the Greeks to push Shosholoza away from the start line allowing them a significant advantage off the line. Although Shosholoza made an impressive come-back during the race, the Greeks took victory and secured 8th position overall in the event. Race three was scheduled to be the final race in RR2 for Team Origin, up against Damiani Italia helmed by Vasco Vascotto. Like Team Origin, this new team has impressed many with its performance so far in this event taking wins in RR2 from Emirates Team NZ and Luna Rossa. This race would decide which of these two teams would finish in 3rd or 4th seed position. The 3rd seed winner would advance directly to the Quarter Finals and the 4th seed would sail Pataugas K Challenge (7th seed) tomorrow morning and would have to win that race if they are to make it to the Quarter Finals The warning gun was fired at 2pm and both boats moved together quickly with Team Origin holding Damiani head to wind showing impressive control. A green flag was waved by the umpires following some shouting as both boats moved astern. The Brits continued to manage the start efficiently and held the controlling position, approaching the line in good shape and with pace on. Team Origin looked to set for another perfectly judged start and much to everyone’s surprise a double gun was fired to signify that Team Origin were uncharacteristically deemed to be over the line. This meant they had turn back to get behind the line and re-start giving the Italians an important 80m lead off the start. Team Origin were going to give it all they had to get back into this race after such a costly decision and headed upwind at max pace. In match racing, the start counts for so much and having to play catch up is not easy for any team. Damiani have shown themselves to be an impressive group and so would make sure they made no mistakes to allow Team Origin to regain control. At the top mark, Damiani led round by 148m. Team Origin pushed hard downwind appearing to sail higher and at a more heated angle and managed to close the gap to 120m. Round the bottom gate the two teams headed upwind for the last time, Damiani being careful to cover and protect their lead. Team Origin managed to head out to the left hand layline and gain a bit of separation and gap closed down to an enticing 50m putting them right back in the race. With only a 13 second gap between them at the top mark, the Team Origin boys threw everything they had at it trying to entice errors from the Italians but they were having none of it and kept their cool crossing the finish line 23 seconds ahead. Team Origins efforts to
get a hearing for redress after receiving favorable photographic evidence
showing that they were possibly on the right side of the start line was
thrown out due to a technicality which was disappointing. |
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LVPS Starts the Countdown to the Final The Louis Vuitton Pacific Series now enters a new stage - the challengers go into a round of knockout races while Emirates Team New Zealand starts preparing for the final. Emirates Team New Zealand goes through to the series final which starts on Friday. Alinghi, by winning the second round robin has qualified for the challenger finals which will decide which team goes up against ETNZ. The knock-out sail-off will determine Alinghi’s opponent Monday was a bad day on the water for Emirates Team New Zealand, finishing round robin 2 of the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series with three losses Grant Dalton said: We didn’t start well but after that we sailed OK. I have absolutely no worry with our crew work. It is great, but we have seen throughout this regatta that a bad start can be the beginning of the end. Add into the mix a couple of shifts that go the wrong way and there’s little chance of recovery against opposition that good. On today’s 27 sec loss to Oracle, skipper Dean Barker said: “We have to stop making the silly little mistakes that have been the story of our second round robin performance The pre-start is all about crucial decisions at critical stages. We had Oracle in a lot of trouble but gave them a chance to break out of it. We could easily have had the left, I chose to make it harder for them and it backfired. Then we didn’t get all the shifts we needed and that meant we had no opportunity to find a passing lane.” Barker is confident the team can turn it around for the final. “We will spend some time de-briefing examine what’s working and what’s not. Whoever we end up racing in the final will be pretty hot. We’ve got the guys and the ability to turn things around. We’re not happy about making mistakes, but learning from those mistakes will make us stronger for the finals.” At the post-race press conference BMW Oracle Racing skipper Russell Coutts summed up the series so far: “One of the great things about this regatta is that we have seen that all these teams are competitive. They all can win races. I feel that this is a fantastic feature of this event. The racing is so close, so intense, it’s an open event now. Any of the teams still competing could win this event. The key to being successful is being consistently good and that’s the challenge for all the teams. and it will be tough to have that consistency in a format like this.” Dalton’s last word: Today we were not sharp enough. We have to get back to the old form. |
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