Down, but not out

Nigel Cherrie reports from Auckland on the first day of the America's Cup International Regatta

After a half an hour break, the yachts paired off for the start of the match racing with GBR Challenge facing OneWorld first.

Beadsworth inflicted a pre-start penalty on James Spithill who took over the helmsman duty from Gilmour, with Morgan Larsen calling the shots. While holding their lead against OneWorld on the windward leg, the starboard primary winch broke. To fix the problem they had to ease and then re-cross the sheet onto another winch, which cost valuable time and stopped Beadsworth for putting in a covering tack. OneWorld escaped and were still able to take their penalty turn and finish 38 seconds ahead.

The GBR Challenge debrief tonight will perhaps carry the headline, "to finish first, first you have to finish". Gear failure aside, Ian Walker's crew were a penalty up and had clear water on one of the four big budget Challenger teams on syndicate row.

"It was good to see us really getting to them and have Andy Beadsworth doing such a good job really nailing the start. We won the pin end and were a penalty up, it doesn't get much better than that really," reflected Walker afterwards.

"We might lose races because we are not as fast but that in a way is completely irrelevant because the new boat will be a completely different game. What I want to do is make sure we sail tidily, have good starts and make good decisions".

The second match race was a much more interesting affair. Team New Zealand beat Sweden by 33 seconds after Barker threw Bank a dummy tack at the top mark (on the second round) as payback for a text book defensive move by the Swedish crew at the first windward mark.

The question this does raise though is why Barker is even able to be in the position to match race a new fourth generation Cup yacht, but Jesper Bank's retort that Team New Zealand have seven years of experience against their start from scratch campaign is justifiable.

Tomorrow, the teams move into complete match racing mode with two more matches in the round robin series but before that, the OneWorld syndicate intend on telling the world their version of the Sean Reeves design secrets scandal.