Day 3 of Racing
 

October 7, 2004
 

Thursday started much better in terms of the weather and exciting racing.

Starts today involved a lot more tactical maneuvering and seemed to be won by whoever found the quickest acceleration. It was surprising to see the number of difficulties at the leeward roundings and several errors made in boat-handling.

Just the like the fireworks display, the race between BMW Oracle and Emirates Team New Zealand was a great finale for the day.  Both boats spun into the wind during the pre-start and it seemed like an eternity before they broke off to engage in a great deal of jockeying for advantage before getting off in a fairly even start.

At the last leeward mark rounding, both boats rounded separate buoys simultaneously. ETNZ gained a narrow lead, lost a lot of it, but prevailed to win by :31.

My friend from Perth found it hard to contain himself and continued on about the Cup heading back to New Zealand.  Obviously it's a little premature to book your tickets to Auckland, but with victories over two strong teams it was a good showing for the Kiwis, moving them into a three-way tie for first place..

--from Lyn Hines ©2004