Post race comment

We speak to some of crews about today's racing in the America's Cup

Audio: Team Shosholoza tactician Dee Smith discusses the South African boat, their rig and gives his views about where BMW Oracle Racing's new boat actually has anything interesting beneath the waterline... Click here

Desafio Espanol tactician and former 470 and Flying Dutchman Gold medalllist Luis Doreste gave his views about finding themselves up against Alinghi in the first race: "We have to sail them against them one day, but I would prefer to sail against another team, not Alinghi in the first race because it is more motivation. We are more motivated to sail against Alinghi, but now we know that they are better than us, a little faster than us but when we have our new boat, we will want to sail against them."

During that race the Spanish team surprised everyone but initially getting ahead of SUI75 however the two boats crossed and SUI75 were able to edge ahead. Doreste explained what happened: "We preferred the left, so we tried to protect the left and it was good, but when we crossed them we had a big left. So we knew we had more pressure on the left in the beginning and we expected the wind to right again. But it didn’t. When they crossed us they went to the right a bit more and they got the right we were expecting. We didn’t tack because we had a good left and we were expecting the wind to go to the right again."

In the second start Desafio Espanol was roundly nailed in the pre-start as +39 helm Iain Percy attempted to push them out at the boat end. The Spanish went for the gap when there wasn't one and picked up two penalties as a result: "It was not a good manoeuvre. We thought we had room to pass but there wasn’t and it was two penalties to us and I think they were right. We had no room and then we stayed there and they luffed we were late luffing. So we had two penalties and we had to do one immediately. When they luffed the second time we had a little collision."

And yet despite having two penalties against them Desafio Espanol went on to win the race... "We were faster than them," Doreste continued. "We have been sailing all this winter and they couldn’t so that is why I think we were a little bit faster upwind."

While the Spanish have launched their new boat they aren't racing it today, but will find themselves up against Luna Rossa's new ITA 86 tomorrow. "We couldn’t see the other boats because they were on the south course, but Luna Rossa looks fast and tomorrow we have to sail against them and we prefer to sail against them in light conditions because I know the new boats are much faster in more than 10 knots. In light conditions maybe they are closer.

Listen to +39 skipper Iain Percy's take on this incident - click here...

For Emirates Team New Zealand's Dean Barker they notched up two wins, the first two races in their new NZL 84, despite a couple of uncharacteristic handling errors. "We had a problem with one of the clips at the first top mark rounding," commented Barker. "The guys did a pretty good job to recover as well as they did. We had to cut the other one (spinnaker) away because it was beginning to trawl. It was a weird one. We haven’t had that one before. Otherwise today the boat seemed good. We are pleased with the way it is going – the performance."

Emirates Team New Zealand have probably had the most training in their new boat of any of the teams save Team Shosholoza. Barker says they had two months in Auckland testing against NZL81 and then two weeks once the new boat had arrived in Valencia. "You are always learning as you develop the boat and think about what you’d do differently with the next new boat." In training Ben Ainslie has been driving NZL81 but had a day at the helm of the new boat when Barker had a day off. Is he scared of the potential threat? "I am pretty happy with my position in the team," Barker said with a smile...

In terms of the relative performance of the new boats to the previous generation Barker said: "I think it is going to be a lot tighter and closer than ever before. The boats’ performance is definitely narrowing but there will still some differences between them and there will some boats which will be better than others in different conditions and it might not be a boat that is dominant right across the range. There will be some that will be pretty quick at times. We spent a lot of time testing and churning the new boat. We haven’t done much racing. We are still finding out what the new boat is like in a race environment versus a testing mode.The advances are nowhere near as big as before. The boat needs to be better than 81 and 82 because clearly they are a step behind Alinghi, so we’ve made gains but whether that is a big enough step we’ll have to wait and see."

And what does he think about the new BMW Oracle boat? "It certainly has some features that are unique to them. In terms of it being a radical boat, it has a bow sprit but that is probably the biggest single difference from the other boats we have seen so far. The proof is in the pudding and we’ll see how we go against them."

Alinghi's Jorde Calafat, the former 470 gold medallist was quizzed about how the Swiss defenders feel about going up against the new version 5 ACC boats in SUI75. "It is a strong team and we are ready for racing. We know it is going to be difficult this Act with the new boat but we look forward to racing against them. We really don’t know what will happen until we line up with these new boats. But you would think that a new boat with a strong team should be faster than us. If no there is something wrong with them. That should be the normal thing." They have raced against Luna Rossa recently but Calafat says they are most concered about Emirates Team New Zealand.

Despite the hype about their jumper-less rig, neither Alinghi nor BMW Oracle Racing used these developmental rigs today. Calafat would not confirm if Alinghi were likely to use their new boat in any of the Acts this year. "Our goal is the Cup in 2007 and we are managing our schedule according to that."