Blowing off the cobwebs

High drama in Marseille for the first fleet racing of the Louis Vuitton Act 1, reports Anne Hinton

The start of Act One of the 2007 America’s Cup in Marseille, France, finally got under way in warm sunshine and southeasterly winds of 15 knots, gusting up to 24 knots. Delays were caused by shifting wind directions, so only one start was held today.

The pin end was the place to be at the start and Emirates Team New Zealand hit the end of the line with full speed on. Alinghi was the windward boat of the bunch at that end of the line. The teams worked their way up the left side of the course on the first beat.

Emirates Team New Zealand helmsman Dean Barker later described their start: “we decided to start to leeward of the fleet. We thought we were going to get some left handersbefore we got to the layline. As it turned out by the time we got to the left handers we were actually slightly overlaid and Alinghi started out to windward of the fleet and they managed to hold on as we got the lefthanders. They sailed a very good race. It was a one-sided track and it was quite difficult to create passing manoeuvres.”

It was all action on the first run, with three boats blowing kites - including Alinghi on the gybe towards the end of the leg, and K-Challenge breaking their spinnaker pole in addition. However, Alinghi made a very smooth rounding at the leeward gate in contrast with the experiences of the rest of the fleet. Emirates Team New Zealand, with team boss Grant Dalton sailing on board in the afterguard (and sewer rat position of re-packing the sails), had to resolve an issue with the pole track having torn off the mast which led to a delay in sheeting in. The lack of pole track also meant that Emirates Team New Zealand had to sail with an asymmetric kite, which, as Barker put it “wasn’t the ideal sail of choice” for the conditions. Furthermore, this caused issues of potential tearing the headsail each time there was a tack, so the team were forced to minimise their number of tacks.

BMW Oracle Racing arrived at the gate shortly afterwards, but in dropping the kite they also wound in the retrieval line, so had to cut the spinnaker free. This procedure took some time and they came to a halt head to wind. This allowed the trailing K-Challenge, who broke their spinnaker pole at the end of the leg, and Shosholoza, South Africa’s first foray into America’s Cup sailing, to get back in the frey. Le Defi had the most
problems and were always in last place.

The positions did not change thereafter throughout the race, with clear spacing between all boats. The gap was not so significant between Alinghi and Emirates Team New Zealand as to that back to BMW Oracle Racing in third place. Alinghi kept a close cover on Emirates Team New Zealand after establishing the lead. Chris Dickson commented that the wind speeds were up on what was usual for America’s Cup class racing, giving BMW Oracle Racing a top speed of 22 knots today. He concluded that, “in this new era, if the winds are blowing the boats will race”.

Behind BMW Oracle Racing there was then a further gap back to K-Challenge, who were ahead of the South African team, Shosholoza. Le Defi was trailing throughout and had considerable issues at the last windward mark, having gybed but with the runners broken and the backstay stayed on the wrong side, put the mast in danger of breakage. She headed into the spectator fleet before resolving the runner problem and getting back on track to the finish.

“We are using a boat and equipment from 2002”, said helmsman Philippe Presti. “We broke a lot of ropes which caused the other issues today. We didn’t have the money to buy new equipment.”

By contrast Barker reported being pleased with the performance of NZL 82, commenting that there was little difference in speed with SUI64. He confirmed that there had been restructuring of the boat which had included reducing the weight in the keel bulb, but said that these were “not major changes”. The boat appeared to be heeling a little more than it had done before today, but going fast.

With Emirates Team New Zealand finishing just 35 seconds behind Alinghi today the stage is set for a good event in Marseille.

To see many more photos of today's racing - click here