Barker comes good

Five straight wins for Emirates Team New Zealand skipper

It felt like it was coming together for Dean Barker Thursday - not just the 41st Congressional Cup, presented by Acura, but the America's Cup in Valencia in 2007.

Barker, skipper for Emirates Team New Zealand, won all five of his races, including a final light-air runaway against Chris Dickson that allowed him to leapfrog the BMW Oracle Racing CEO and skipper.

Barker is 11-3 after 14 of 18 matches in the double round robin, followed now by Dickson, who is 10-3 but has one make-up race in hand against Russell Coutts, who is third at 9-4. That race, postponed a day earlier when Dickson's traveller car broke, will be sailed Friday or Saturday before the semifinal sail-offs.

However it turns out, the teams with America's Cup intentions should be the better for the experience. It's different from sailing in the big one but a good training ground because of the smaller boats, shorter courses and shorter races.

"When things happen a lot quicker, it puts pressure on everybody," Barker said. "That makes you better. This is the first time I've sailed with our team in an event on the [march racing] circuit. We talk a lot between races about how we can do things better."

As for that next America's Cup, Coutts, sailing here with tactician Jes Gram-Hansen's Danish crew, will be a spectator after playing the key role in the previous three victories over the past decade. But in posting a 4-1 record Thursday he was sailing with the command he showed then and in winning three events on the Swedish Match Tour in the past year.

Barker's crew here includes two Americans: tactician Terry Hutchinson and pitman Moose McClintock, who is sailing his 16th Congressional Cup with his fourth skipper. The others are Kiwis Skip Baxter, main sail trimmer; James Dagg, headsail trimmer, and Jeremy Lomas, bow. All except McClintock are TNZ members.

Barker said, "Everything fell our way today. We were lucky to pick the right side most of the day . . ."

"Lucky?!" Hutchinson interrupted, feigning indignation.

A year ago, in dying breeze on the last leg of the last race, Hutchinson appeared to have a grip on his second Crimson Blazer symbolic of victory in this event. In fact, Dickson trailed by 2 minutes 14 seconds at the last mark after sailing into the same area on the second upwind leg where Hutchinson's hopes died against Ed Baird a year earlier.

Against Dickson, Hutchinson said he was thinking: "This is about the same lead we had on Baird. We did a lot better today in sailing with more conviction and not sailing the other guy's race. Until now we've just spent a lot of time hanging out together, and we have two years to get to the level where we can win the America's Cup."

Barker and Dickson are good bets to reach the semifinals, but the other two positions are up for grabs among Coutts, France's Mathieu Richard (9-5) and England's Chris Law and Finland's Staffan Lindberg, each 8-6.

Lindberg said, "we're still in the hunt, but the heat gets turned up in the kitchen tomorrow." He survived by beating Law in the last round of racing Thursday, as the winds diminished from a peak of 13 knots to light and patchy.

Earlier, Law and Denmark's Lars Nordbjerg, who has local veteran Steve Flam calling tactics, had what Law called a "ding-dong match." The second time upwind, with Nordberg trailing and carrying a pre-start penalty, Law crossed him with starboard tack right of way, then wheeled back so aggressively that he drew a red flag penalty from the umpires for a flagrant foul - meaning that he was required to do the penalty turn immediately.

As Law did his turn, Nordbjerg came at him hoping to draw a foul that would cancel his own but drew another instead. Then, with a slight lead and a controlling position downwind, he took Law outside the committee boat well past the finish line, then turned back hoping to do his turn before Law could pass. Instead, Law poked his bow inside and Nordbjerg left too little room between his boat and the committee boat, Law bounced off both, Nordberg took another penalty and it was over.

Earlier, Law had opened the day by beating Coutts, who could never shake off an early penalty. "The last time we raced Chris [in the first round] we had four penalties, so one is a big improvement," said Coutts.







There were 41 protest flags in the 25 races and 15 penalties imposed. Racing continues through Saturday.

Results:

ROUND 10---Chris Dickson, Golden Gate YC, San Francisco, def. Scott Dickson, Long Beach YC, 1 minute 20 seconds; Dean Barker, Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, def. Chris Larson, Annapolis YC, 35 seconds; Chris Law, Royal Cape YC, South Africa, def. Russell Coutts, Aarhus Sejlklub, Denmark, DNF; Staffan Lindberg, Aaland Islands YC, Finland, def. Philippe Presti, Union Nationale pour la Course au Large, France, 35 seconds; Mathieu Richard, APCC-Voile Sportive, France, def. Lars Nordbjerg, Skovshoved Sejlklub, Denmark, 1 minute 10 seconds.

ROUND 11---Larson d. S. Dickson, 0:06; Barker d. Richard, 0:50; Law d. Nordbjerg, DNF; Coutts d. Lindberg, 0:15; C. Dickson d. Presti, 0:45.

ROUND 12---Richard d. C. Dickson, 0:10; Barker d. S. Dickson, 0:17; Presti d. Law, 0:40; Coutts d. Nordbjerg. 0:50; Lindberg d. Larson, 0:24.

ROUND 13---C. Dickson d. Larson, 0:03; S. Dickson d. Richard, 0:06; Nordbjerg d. Lindberg, 0:10; Coutts d. Presti, 0:21; Barker d. Law, 0:50.

ROUND 14—Barker d. C. Dickson, no time; Richard d. Larson, 2:00-plus; Lindberg d. Law, 1:30; Nordbjerg d. Presti, 0:15; Coutts d. S. Dickson, 1:27.

Standings (after 14 of 18 rounds):
1. Barker, 11-3
2. C. Dickson, 10-3*
3. Coutts*, 9-4
4. Richard, 9-5
5. tie between Lindberg and Law, 8-6
7. Nordbjerg, 6-8
8. Presti, 4-10
9. S. Dickson, 3-11
10. Larson, 1-13.

*Match postponed.