Three in a row for TeamOrigin

Ainslie claims Team Shosholoza's scalp on day four of the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series

Round Robin 1
Results after Mon 2nd Feb
POOL A
	ETNZ	BMWO	K Challenge	Damiani	China
ETNZ v	-	W		W	W
BMWO v	L	-	W		W
K Challenge v		L	-	L	W
Damiani Italia v	L		W	-	W
China Team v	L	L	L	L	-
POOL B
	Alinghi	Luna Rossa	TeamOrigin	Shosholosa	Greek
Alinghi v	-	W	L		W
Luna Rossa v	L	-	L	W	W
TeamOrigin v	W	W	-	W
Shosholosa v		L	L	-	L
Greek Challenge v	L	L		W	-

Competition in the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series took on a new sense of urgency as dusk fell over the Hauraki Gulf this evening and South Africa’s Shosholoza and Italy’s Luna Rossa scrapped like tigers throughout a four-lap race. Think dinghy moves in 80-footers!

The victory honours went to Peter Holmberg skippering Luna Rossa, but only after multiple lead changes and two penalties imposed on the Paolo Cian-driven South African boat. It was by far the closest race in the first four days of competition in the two-week long international match race for big boats sailed in Auckland’s harbour.

A long delay waiting for suitable wind forced a late start to racing and nightfall was near by the time the Italians and South Africans and had their chance to sail a race that was abandoned yesterday.

A tense pre-start battle led into a close weather leg featuring lead changes and some slow-speed jockeying for position at the weather mark. Cian was first around with an 18 second margin only to be penalized on the run as Holmberg drew level and tried to pass. At the leeward mark Holmberg scraped in by just five seconds ahead of the Italians.
At the second weather mark Cian had the upper hand again and executed a series of downspeed defensive tacks that had the boats crawling above the layline as the Italian skipper looked for an opportunity to land a penalty on Holmberg, a move that would cancel the penalty hanging over his head.

An already tactical race turned bizarre as the boats rounded and neither set spinnakers. Cian was still hunting for a penalty. Holmberg was content to lay back and avoid one. The top half of the last run was a series of jerky S-turns with the big mainsails slamming back and forwards as the skippers feinted and counterpunched. Finally Cian copped a second penalty which meant he had to take the requisite 360-turn to neutralise the first. Holmberg sailed away to win by 1 min 9 sec.

Racing had been delayed due to an initial lack of wind and eventually the first warning signal was fired at 1430 and races 1 and 2 got underway in a nice 8 knot and building breeze.

Race 1 saw Emirates Team NZ place a fairly emphatic win over China Team and Race 2 saw Luna Rossa similarly defeat the Greek Challenge. It must be remembered that these two ‘new’ teams have had only a maximum of five short practise sessions and are then expected to take on the likes of ETNZ and Luna Rossa who have been training and racing these boats for at least 4 years – so the quality of racing and boat handling they have been producing is pretty impressive despite their respective losses today.

Following a further delay while the crew transfers took place and the teams had a short practise time in their boats, race 3 warning signal was eventually fired at 1640. Race 3 was between BMW Oracle Racing and Pataugas K Challenge and this was followed 10 minutes later by the start of race 4 - TeamOrigin v Shosholosa.

Ben Ainslie again engaged in fairly aggressive pre-start manoeuvres with the South African team, they managed to sail Shosholosa away from the start line, but Paolo Cian was able to use the spectator fleet to tack away from TeamOrigin and made it back to the start line to cross just to leeward of TeamOrigin.

Up the first beat Team Shosholosa showed good pace to be slightly ahead and kept TeamOrigin on the right side of the course. As they approached the top windward mark a luffing incident occurred and TeamOrigin managed to maintain momentum despite being luffed and gain the inside track to lead around the first windward mark by a narrow 13 seconds.

They both headed downwind with Shosholosa following TeamOrigin trying to take their wind and close the gap. They eventually gybed off and TeamOrigin held their lane and gained some distance through picking the right shift and led around the 1st leeward mark by 29 seconds.

The 2nd beat saw TeamOrigin extend their lead and keep a loose cover on Shosholosa allowing TeamOrigin to round the 2nd windward ahead. On the last downwind leg TeamOrigin maintained their lead and led across the finish line by 48 seconds.

Sir Keith Mills, TeamOrigin Team Principal, commented after his first 18th man experience with his own team, “Finally I get to race as 18th man with my own team and what a great race it was. Team Shosholosa kept us on our toes up the first beat and around the first windward mark and we then had to battle hard to keep them behind us, another good day for TeamOrigin but a long way to go yet!”

With one day’s competition remaining in the first round robin, the scores are:

Pool A – Emirates Team New Zealand, 3; Damiani Italia Challenge, 2; BMW Oracle Racing, 2; Pataugas K Challenge, 1; China Team, 0. Pool B – TeamOrigin, 3; Alinghi, 2; Luna Rossa, 2; Greek Challenge, 0, Team Shosholoza, 0.