Alinghi through

After Swiss team take the best of three matches in the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series challenger final to 2-0

Following their 1 second come-from-behind win yesterday, so Alinghi triumphed once again today against BMW Oracle Racing, thereby winning the best of three Challenger finals of the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series 2-0.

In a re-take of the 32nd America's Cup, tomorrow Alinghi meets the hosts, Emirates Team New Zealand, at the beginning of a two-day, seven-race regatta for the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series trophy.

Today’s race marked the end of 13 days of high-energy match racing to select a finalist to race against Emirates Team New Zealand. In a dry run of the type of format that we might see in the 33rd America's Cup, the home team, the 'defender' of the Louis Vuitton Cup from Valencia - Emirates Team New Zealand, competed in the two round robins with nine international teams from eight countries but sat out the sail-off series that finished today.

With the threat of heavy wind this afternoon, racing started early in a 14-15 knot northerly and for Coutts and the Americans it was over before the start gun fired as Baird blocked his approach to the start line.

BMW Oracle Racing had enjoyed the advantage of the right hand entry at the five minute gun and engaged Alinghi in a couple of tight circles, the boats only metres apart. With 1:30 remaining, both boats were lining up for the start inside the starboard layline with Oracle astern and to weather.

As they approached the line Baird remained on starboard but pointed his bow straight at the committee boat locking the US team out. Coutts had nowhere to go and went head to wind as Baird bore off at speed to shave the committee boat.

Coutts could only follow slowly dead astern in his opponent's wake. The American boat was trailing by 40 metres just moments after the start and never threatened Alinghi as the margin opened out to 58 seconds at the second weather mark and over a minute at the finish

“We were in quite a nice position today and had plenty of time to assess the options coming on the final approach to the start,” Coutts said ruefully. “We burned up a little too much time when we didn’t need to.”

Asked if problems with his boat’s trim tab affected steering during the start, Coutts acknowledged that there was a problem with its control chain a couple of minutes before the start. “That’s not why we lost though,” he said emphatically. “No excuses. We lost the race.”

Asked if he’d return to New Zealand for a similar event, Coutts said: “I thoroughly enjoyed the racing over the last few weeks. I think it's a fantastic event and I think in these economic times the idea that Louis Vuitton and Emirates Team New Zealand have come up with where all the teams race in borrowed boats, rather than shipping boats all around the world is frankly a commercial reality. There's no question in my mind that this format works, it's something that should be looked at in future."

On yesterday's race where Alinghi had pipped them to the post by one second after Coutts and his American team had led the entire race, Coutts commented: “You can always reflect on things that might have been and yesterday I think perhaps we got a little complacent at the end of the race. The finishing line was heavily biased towards the committee boat end and it is a pretty elementary thing to spot, but we sort of missed that, so that was our fatal error."

After six years away from racing in this class, Coutts said he was closer to finding form than he expected. "Three to four months of serious practice should see us back to the good consistency you need. Communication is one of the key things. Getting a good understanding of how and when to communicate important pieces of information to each other takes time and practice."

For the Swiss team Brad Butterworth commented: “It's a great result for the team; there were two good crews out there today and we had perfect sailing conditions. In the end we managed to get a good victory and are into the next stage of the event. It is really good to get the sport back where it belongs: on the water. Racing not only against BMW Oracle, but alongside all the other teams is something we like to do as a group and I only hope that we can sort all this out as soon as possible so we can get on and do that.”

Tomorrow is the first day of the finals for the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series and following the draw, Alinghi will sail the newer NZL92 while Emirates Team New Zealand will compete in NZL84 but with starboard entry rights at the start.

More photos on the following pages....