Italians on plane home

Sam Davies reports on the crunch match at the bottom of the table, and looks at the other matches sailed today.

Today was a big day for the two teams that have been fighting it out at the bottom of the table. Mascalzone Latino and Le Defi Areva, both on one win, met each other for the race that was to decide their fate and send one team home for an early bath.

Again the schedule was for a two-race day, with flight nine first, leaving only the matches that had been abandoned or postponed left to be sailed. The afternoon’s racing featured some of these left-over matches, with the rest scheduled for tomorrow.

Following last night’s stormy weather, the skies had cleared over the Hauraki Gulf, leaving a blustery WNW wind, with sunshine and showers. The wind was again forecast to increase throughout the day as the next trough approached from the west.

All eyes were on the 'big match' between Mascalzone Latino and Le Defi. This was the first match on Romeo course, and the featured race of the day on TV here in Auckland. Mascalzone entered from the starboard end and Le Defi came in on port. Both boats dialled up together, with the Italian rascals in a strong position, parallel to, but slightly astern of the French. This allowed them to control the French and keep them above the start line as both boats fell onto port tack and the French had to keep clear to windward.
Mascalzone worked hard to prevent the French from rolling over the top, and the two boats sailed out into the spectator fleet, where they would have a chance of escaping. They took their chance and Le Defi smartly tacked. Mascalzone were a little slow to respond and Le Defi were able to bear away and roll over the top of the Rascals to get back below the start line.

With one minute to go, on the final approach to the line Mascalzone rolled back over Le Defi to lead back, maybe the French wanted the right? The French then pushed hard to pressure the Italians, and tacked off at 20s to maintain speed and get an even start, split, with Mascalzone at the pin on starboard and Le Defi on port at the boat.

More pressure on the right gave the French the early advantage as they tacked over to starboard and both boats sailed out towards the left hand side of the course. Mascalzone then tacked over towards the French and initiated a bit of a tacking duel, as they did not want to get to the port layline early where the French could sit on their air. Le Defi were successful in forcing Mascalzone out to the layline, where they made the Italians do two extra tacks to keep their lane clear above the layline.

Le Defi rounded the windward mark 28 seconds ahead of Mascalzone, with a slightly shaky hoist! Their spinnaker quickly filled though and the French team worked hard down the run to keep between their opponent and the mark and rounded the leeward mark 30 seconds ahead. As promised by Luc Pillot to some nervous French journalists at the press conference yesterday, the French executed perfect cover over the Italians up the second beat. Mascalzone never gave up, however, and attacked the French with a 17-tack tacking duel. The Rascals gained at first, until a rain squall passed through and they were on the wrong side of the accompanying shift.

Unfortunately for Mascalzone, they were never able to get back from there, as the French continued to cover them perfectly and remain between them and the finish, to win the match by 1min 10s and keep the French hopes alive in the Louis Vuitton Cup.

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