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.

A traveller problem on board Oracle postponed their match against Victory challenge to tomorrow afternoon, which left two matches to be sailed this afternoon, OneWorld against Stars and Stripes on Romeo and GBR Challenge against Alinghi on Juliet Course.

OneWorld and Stars and Stripes came off the start split, OneWorld at the committee boat and Stars and Stripes at the pin, both on port tack. The start was even, although Stars and Stripes came away a penalty down for a port and starboard incident. OneWorld quickly established a lead over Team Dennis Conner (Dennis was over in Gulf Harbour with his Etchells today) and were 25 seconds ahead at the windward mark. Stars and Stripes failed to make any gain for the rest of the race and OneWorld got the point, finishing with a delta of 1m 19s after Stars & Stripes completed their penalty.

Over on Juliet course Beadsworth on Wight Lightning coolly controlled Coutts to win the right hand side out of the pre-start. From way above the starboard lay line (of the committee boat) Wight Lightning pushed Alinghi down the line far enough to tack and wind up to cross the line at speed on port by the committee boat. Alinghi tacked onto port after the start and got a small lift. This lift, coupled with a small edge on boat speed and height, quickly put Alinghi ahead by two lengths in the first two minutes.

Alinghi continued to build on their lead up the beat to round the top mark 38 seconds ahead of Wight Lightning, just as a rain squall was passing and the breeze was up around 20 knots. Alinghi sailed down the run with bowman Curtis Blewitt aloft, attempting to repair the 4th batten down on their mainsail, which had come out of the luff track and was threatening to get worse. Even so, they gained more on the run, and the mainsail problem appeared not to slow them down as they turned upwind, and gained another 36 seconds to be 1min29s ahead at mark three. Blewitt was again sent up the mast to the problem batten as a precautionary matter for the final run to the finish, where Alinghi secured their 13th point and their place at the top of the scoreboard for the first two round robins.

Alinghi will have 24 hours from the completion of this round robin to make their decision on who to sail in the quarter finals from the top half of the draw. The result of this last match also confirms that Victory Challenge will be in fifth place at the end of the round robin, and will also be choosing their opponent. GBR Challenge and Stars and Stripes are now finished too, in 6th and 7th place respectively.