Road to the Louis Vuitton Cup

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

Where now?

The quarter finals begin in just over a week on 12 November and here the competition takes on a different flavour. The eight remaining boats have now been divided into groups of two - top four and bottom four. The leaders in these groups choose which one of the remaining three boats in their group they will race in a best of seven series in the quarter finals. Predictably Alinghi and Victory Challenge have chosen the lowest ranked teams in their group and so the matches for the quarter finals will be:

1) Alinghi v Prada
2) OneWorld v Oracle
3) Victory Challenge v Le Defi Areva
4) GBR Challenge v Team Dennis Conner

From here the winners of 1) and 2) go fast track straight through to the semi finals. Alinghi's Brad Butterworth explains why this is strategically important for them: "If you look at the way the regatta’s organised, in the quarter final if you pick the strongest boat and you manage to beat them they go down to the repercharge part of the event. So they have to do more races. With the Louis Vuitton the way it’s structured, you only get so many sails that you’re allowed to measure in. They’re very important. That team will use more sails, do more races. So if you can stay on the top side of the ladder, you get a chance to sail against your other boat more, do more testing, and you’re a little bit more free."

The losers of matches 1) and 2) get to race the winners of 3) and 4). So if OneWorld beat Oracle, and GBR Challenge beat Team Dennis Conner, Oracle will race GBR Challenge in the quarterfinal repechage for another best of seven matches starting on 23 November. The winners of the two repechage matches go on to fill the bottom two slots in the semi-finals. So although prospects are currently not looking great for GBR Challenge, it is still possible for them to make it through to the semis.

If present form holds good then GBR Challenge should be able to beat Team Dennis Conner in the quarter finals, but it is most unlikely that Conner's team will sit on their hands over the next few days and we can expect to see some dramatic improvement in their performance. Past Cups have shown that if there is one team which responds well to playing with it back up against the wall it is they.

But the upshot of this is that if GBR Challenge are to make any impression on the quarter finals they will need to play an ace. This could be GBR-78. Theory suggests that the twin foil arrangement on her keel is faster but past experience in the Cup with keels of this type suggests that it makes it much harder for the crew to get the best out of the boat. Already there seems to have been a major balance issue with the boat and it appears that the rig has been moved forwards - the boat now has a mini bowsprit presumably to keep the J measurement between mast and forestay bottom the same. Have the design team got time to develop this enough to go racing with it? Have the crew got the time to learn how to get the best out of her?

If over the next few days she proves not to be the flying machine her chief advocate David Barnes predicts, then what should they do? Should they keep developing 78 or should they concentrate on 70 or should they continue to develop both? If they continue to develop 70 what have they got left in the bank to do so?

More photos on the next pages...