Ainslie out, Percy through in Elba

A report from day two of the match racing at the Elba Cup

Day two of the Toscana Elba Cup-Trofeo Locman saw several titans of the match racing world sent packing in the gusty but sunny conditions off Porto Azzurro.

Among those be changing their plane tickets forward was Ben Ainslie representing Emirates Team New Zealand while Dean Barker awaits the arrival of Barker Jnr to be born. Ainslie was knocked out after a simple timing error to the line, however going through to the last eight is +39's Iain Percy.

The final three flights of Group B's round robin was held in a light ESEerly but as the final match was finishing, the wind shifted around to the northwest, the Mistral direction, and promptly increased in strength to 15 knots, with gusts up to 18 knots and big oscillations in the breeze as the puffs rolled off the mountains at the western end of the bay. The gusts started reaching 20 knots later in the day, and as a result the race committee ordered the use of the smaller, 100% jibs in place of the larger, overlapping genoas.

The gusty conditions, shifts and the bands of wind running through the Bay made for some dramatic racing in the Swedish Match 40 one-designs, which although they look like scaled down America's Cup boats show vastly superior acceleration. As a result there were more than six come-from-behind victories in the 22 matches held today. Two of them came on the finish line in the final flight of Group A’s round robin, and affected the final standings in the group.

Three times crews pulled off a penalty turn on the finish line, completing their 270-degree turn and clearing the line before their competitor could overtake. After the Group A and B round robins were completed, four boats were tied in Group A and three in Group B and sudden death tie-breaks were held to determine the quarter finallists.

This culminated in Group B's Peter Gilmour, Gavin Brady and Iain Percy advancing directly to the quarter finals while Ed Baird, Magnus Holmberg and James Spithill of moved on in Group A .

Once the round robins were decided, the repechage was held as a second chance opportunity for two boats to join the top three from Groups A and B in the quarter finals.

These saw South African Ian Ainslie of Team Shosholoza despatch his namesake Ben (aside from being two Ainslies competing, there are also two Holmbergs - Magnus and Peter racing here) after the Olympic double gold medallist mis-timed the start and was found over early. Ben Ainslie protested the race committee after the loss, saying that the timing between the start flag and the sound signal wasn’t in sync. But he also admitted it was his responsibility to start properly.

Meanwhile Francesco de Angelis of Luna Rossa Challenge defeated K-Challenge's Thierry Peponnet. The Italian overtook Peponnet on the first beat and then tenaciously hung on to his advantage.

In the grudge match between 'new' Alinghi helm Peter Holmberg and Russell Coutts, the former Swiss skipper sailing as the newly christened 'Team Coutts' but comprising Jes Gram-Hansen and his crew, won out.

Coutts earned the penalty approaching the leeward mark while trailing Holmberg. Despite being penalised he rounded the leeward mark close to Holmberg and then gained the lead in the following moments. On port tack, he crossed Holmberg’s bow in a lifting puff. Once across, he got to the right side where, on starboard tack, he found another lifting puff. That allowed him to extend to an insurmountable lead, despite a bad spinnaker set and the penalty turn.

Finally former Team New Zealander afterguard Hamish Pepper, newly signed up as helm for Mascalzone Latino beat his counterpart, Polish former match race world champion Karol Jablonski who has finally signed with Spain's AC team, Desafio Espanol.

Pepper won his match after Jablonski was penalised at the first windward mark when he tried to round inside of Pepper. After the match Pepper was at a loss to explain what had happened. As he walked towards the umpires’ office to confer about the incident, he said that he thought he might’ve been in the wrong.

Tomorrow morning’s repechage matches see Ian Ainslie up against de Angelis and Coutts against Pepper. The winner of Ainslie-de Angelis advances to the bottom half of the quarter final ladder where he’ll face Peter Gilmour (AUS), who won the Group B round robin with a 5-1 record. Gilmour won his group after completing penalty turns at the finish line in two of his three final matches.

The other half of that bracket pits Magnus Holmberg (SWE), second in Group A with a 4-2 mark, against Iain Percy (GBR), who finished third in Group B at 3-3.

The winner of the Coutts-Pepper match advances to the top half of the quarterfinal ladder to face Ed Baird (USA), who won Group A at 4-2. James Spithill (AUS), third in Group A with a 4-2 record, races Gavin Brady (NZL), second in Group B at 4-2, in the other half of the bracket.

TOSCANA ELBA CUP – Repechage Round Results
Ian Ainslie (RSA) d. Ben Ainslie (GBR)
Francesco de Angelis (ITA) d. Thierry Peponnet (FRA)
Winner of I. Ainslie-de Angelis match advances to quarterfinals

Russell Coutts (NZL) d. Peter Holmberg (ISV)
Hamish Pepper (NZL) d. Karol Jablonski (POL)
Winner of Coutts-Pepper match advances to quarterfinals

TOSCANA ELBA CUP – Final Round Robin Standings
Group A
1. Ed Baird* (USA) Team Alinghi, 4-2
Crew: Nils Frei, Yann Gouniot, Piet Van Nieuwenhuyzen, Dean Phipps
2. Magnus Holmberg* (SWE) Victory Challenge, 4-2
Crew: Martin Krite, Lars Linger, Oskar Ljung, Mattias Rahm
3. James Spithill* (AUS) Luna Rossa Challenge, 4-2
Crew: Magnus Augustson, Michele Ivaldi, Jonathan McKee, Joe Newton
4. Ben Ainslie (GBR) Emirates Team New Zealand, 4-2
Crew: Ray Davies, Andy Hemmings, Richard Meacham, Chris Salthouse
5. Hamish Pepper (NZL) Mascalzone Latino-Capitalia Team, 3-3
Crew: Alberto Barovier, Vasco Vascotto, Antar Vigna, Jon Ziskind
6. Francesco de Angelis (ITA) Luna Rossa Challenge, 2-4
Crew: Tom Burnham, Ben Durham, Charlie McKee, Tatsuya Wakinaga
7. Peter Holmberg (ISV) Team Alinghi, 0-6
Crew: Warwick Fleury, Murray Jones, Bernard Labro, Lorenzo Mazza

Group B
1. Peter Gilmour* (AUS) Pizza-La Sailing Team, 5-1
Crew: Rod Dawson, Mike Mottl, Kazuhiko Sofuku, Yasuhiro Yaji
2. Gavin Brady* (NZL) BMW Oracle Racing, 4-2
Crew: Sean Clarkson, Dirk de Ridder, Robbie Naismith, Brad Webb
3. Iain Percy* (GBR) +39 Challenge, 3-3
Crew: Tommasso Chieffi, Stefano Rizzi, Christian Scherrer, Jacek Wysocki
4. Russell Coutts (NZL) Coutts Racing, 3-3
Crew: Michael Arnhild, Jes Gram-Hansen, Christian Kamp, Rasmus Kostner
5. Thierry Peponnet (FRA) K-Challenge, 3-3
Crew: Benoit Briand, Tanguy Cariou, Sean “Doogie” Couvreux, Thierry Douillard
6. Karol Jablonski (RSA) Desafio Español, 2-4
Crew: Jaime Arbonez, Luis Doreste, Marcos Iglesias, Santiago Lopez
7. Ian Ainslie (RSA) Team Shosholoza, 1-5
Crew: Charles Nankin, David Rae, Alexander Runciman, Mark Sadler