Road to the Louis Vuitton Cup

James Boyd examines the round robins and looks ahead to what's in store for the quarter finals

Round robin 1

Pos	Syndicate	Alinghi	Oracle	Victory	OneWorld	Team DC	GBR	Prada	M Latino	Le Defi	Tot
1	Alinghi		W: 1:43	W: 0:25	L: 0:10	W: 1:10	W:4:33	W: 1:32	W: 7:08	W: 4:48	7
1	OneWorld	W: 0:10	W: 0:40	W: 0:59		W: 1:21	W: 3:22	W: 1:11	W: 5:43	W: 0:21	7
3	Oracle	L: 1:43		W: 10:45	L: 0:40	W: 1:58	L: 0:36	W: 0:42	W: 2:03	W: 2:52	5
4	Team DC	L: 1:10	L: 1:58	L: 0:33	L: 1:21		W: 0:20	W:35	W: 1:36	DNS	4
4	GBR	L: 4:33	W: 0:36	W: 0:48	L: 3:22	L: 0:20		L: 0:22	W: 0:54	W: 0:13	4
6	Prada	L: 1:32	L: 0:42	W: 2:35	L: 1:11	L: 0:35	W: 0:22		W: 4:28	W: 5:52	4
6	Victory	L: 0:25	L: 10:45		L: 0:59	W: 0:33	L: 0:48	L: 2:35	W: 0:35	W: 1:06	3
8	M Latino	L: 7:08	L: 2:03	L: 0:35	L: 5:43	L: 1:36	L: 0:54	L: 4:28		W: 5:19	1
9	Le Defi	L: 4:48	L: 2:52	L: 1:06	L: 0:21	DNS	L: 0:13	L: 5:52	L: 5:19		0

Round robin 2

Pos

Syndicate

Alinghi

OneWorld

Oracle

Team DC

GBR

Prada

Victory

M Latino

Le Defi

Tot

O'all

1

Alinghi

-

W: 0:27

L; 0:04

W: 0:49

W: 1:26

L*

W: 0:29

W: 2:11

W: 5:54

6

13

2=

OneWorld

L: 0:27

-

L: 0:40

W: 1:19

W: 1:05

W: 0:54

W: 0:21

W: 4:01

L: 0:57

5

12

2=

Oracle

W: 0:04

W: 0:40

-

W: 0:18

W: 2:00

L: 1:55

W: 0:43

W: 2:40

W: 1:07

7

12

4

Prada

W*

L: 0:54

W:1:55

W: 0:41

W: 0:16

-

W: 0:10

W: 1:42

W: 1:04

7

11

5

Victory

L: 0:29

L: 0:21

L: 0:43

W: 0:13

W: 1:01

L: 0:10

-

W: 1:17

W: 1:19

4

7

6

GBR

L: 1:26

L: 1:05

L: 2:00

W: 0:46

-

L: 0:16

L: 1:01

W: 1:40

W: 0:14

3

7

7

Team DC

L: 0.49

L: 1:19

L: 0:18

-

L: 0:46

L: 0:41

L: 0:13

W: 1:09

W: 1:12

2

6

8

Le Defi

L: 5:54

W: 0:57

L: 1:07

L: 1:12

L: 0:14

L: 1:04

L: 1:19

W: 1:10

-

2

2

9

M Latino

L 2:11

L: 4:01

L: 2:40

L; 1:09

L: 1:40

L: 1:42

L: 1:17

-

L: 1:10

0

1

The round robins, the effective seeding process in the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger series, have now come to an end. So what surprises were there and what lies ahead?

In the overall results the 'big four' are the top four, as many anticipated, after spectacular improvements in the form of Prada and Oracle in the second round robin. Prada in particular over the last few days have been showing some of the form that took them through to the America's Cup last time round, although not all their races have been clear cut. Aboard Oracle the management changes in the afterguard seem to have been effective and team also appear to have revved up their Farr design in certain areas of their performance envelope where it appeared to be lacking in the early matches. They too are looking like a class act.

OneWorld, although second overall still, had a disappointing second round and dropped three races after their unbeaten run in the first round robin. Due to gear failure they suffered a shock defeat at the hands of Le Defi Areva and were led around the course for too long by Mascalzone Latino. The general feeling is that they have either got slower or the competition has got a great deal faster.

After finishing round robin one in a comfortable fourth, Team Dennis Conner had an appalling second round robin in their narrow boat and now lie seventh. Clearly change will be afoot in the Conner camp and Mr America's Cup even took to the water on Friday aboard USA66 in order to be able to give his input.

"We’re trying to improve every day that we go sailing and one of the things that we really haven’t tapped into well enough probably is our most valuable resource, Dennis Connor," commented Conner stalwart Bill Trenkle. "It’s very hard sometimes for a sailor to get a good feel for what’s really going on without taking the helm and sailing around the racecourse."

Victory Challenge are doing well for a smaller team. Their Mani Frers design appears to be on the pace and they are benefitting from the powerful Scandinavian match racing skills of Bank and Magnus Holmberg.

We were very disappointed that Mascalzone Latino failed to win a race in the second round robin and have now been dropped from the series. This relatively low budget campaign brought verve to the event and on many occasions looked to be giant slayers until basic errors got the better of them. The fall of the 'Rascals' came in the match against Prada. They led the supposed Italy 'A' team around the course only to lose the race within spitting distance of the line due to a handling mistake. This disheartened the team which was certainly a contributing factor in them dropped the crucial race against the French.

In our opinion it should have been Mascalzone Latino and not Le Defi Areva who should have made it through to the quarter finals. The French team have looked consistently average for a majority of the event and they were frankly lucky to take a race off OneWorld.

Alinghi, as ever look impossibly strong and are still clear favourites for winning the challenger series.

However all of this must be taken with a pinch of salt. One of several annoying things about trying to cover the America's Cup is that the form can change spectacularly. As Andy Beadsworth recently stressed in our interview with him, the America's Cup is all about movement and progress in both the teams and the hardware and this makes it all the harder to make predictions. For example several teams including GBR Challenge have still to use their second boat and it is possible that one of these could prove to be a flier.

Development is the key to success in this event, so it is for this reason that the lay periods between the bouts of racing are so critical. When competition ends a team might take a short breather but then it is immediately back into intensive testing and possibly even major boat surgery as Prada demonstrated so effectively between the round robins. Perhaps one of the reasons this event has always attracted the captains of industry is that to stay ahead it is often necessary to make radical change be it to the crew or the boat. It will be interesting from which bases the sound of chainsaws will be heard over the next few days.

Continued on page 2...

What we will be seeing more of in the quarter finals...