No upset of the applecart

OneWorld and Prada continue to show their form during the Quarterfinal repechage

Q – Jesper, were any of the crew hurt in the luffing incident?

Jesper – No every one of the crew on board is healthy and fine, no injuries, but the spinnaker pole is broken.

Q – Did you lose control of the boat? Did you broach?

Jesper – No. We had to keep clear and came up higher than 90-degrees true wind angle and there was a little bit of tension on the brace and the boom (spinnaker pole) actually broke across the forestay because the brace was under load and it was all because we were up too high, too close to the wind.

Q – Why weren’t you able to fix the spinnaker pole?

Jesper – We have equipment to make a repair quickly but when we were struggling to get the sail down the pole went in the water and broke in three places and we don’t have equipment to fix that. We can repair it within a minute or two but when it broke again, all hope was out that we would be using that pole again.

Q – Why did you lower the gennaker in such a hurry?

Jesper – We dropped the halyard when were higher than beam reaching because we lost control of the boat, because we were luffed as high as we were. So we lowered the halyard to get down on the wind.

Q – You must be disappointed?

Jesper – We are very disappointed. There are several things we are discussing now about how we could have been more successful, but we aren’t quite quite certain yet what other options would have helped a lot. We were up against somebody who is really doing well. We are also looking forward to hearing exactly what the Umpires saw and what the call is because in our opinion we had studied the call and thought we had a situation where we were even going nearly close hauled with the kite up when we were penalised so we’d like to hear what the Umpires saw.

Q – We saw the spinnaker touch Luna Rossa when it dropped?

Jesper – Yes, we saw that too. But it is a natural, seaman like move to drop the spinnaker when you’re luffed higher than beam reaching. We believe we should have room enough to conduct that manoeuvre (the spinnaker drop) as well.

Q – What about going so fast without a spinnaker pole? Don’t we need poles?

Jesper – It looks like it. It seems to be just as good. We were surprised as well.

Q – What about boat speed compared to Luna Rossa?

Jesper – We sailed as we probably were yesterday, Same thing today. Yesterday we got on the outside of two lifts and therefore we had difficulty measuring our speed against Prada. Today, we had more stable winds and it seemed quite an even match – probably the more tacks, the better we do.

Q – Are you confident going into tomorrow?

Jesper – Yeah that’s the good thing about it. I think that we’ve got a package that boat on boat can match Prada and then it comes down to the people handling the equipment, As you saw today, I think we have met a very strong team and if we get our act together we still have a chance.

Q – Congatulations Francesco, Prada did well, but the Swedes were impressed. What do you think?

Francesco – They sailed a very good race, and it was a good fight. They were able to keep the race very close.

Q – They seemed fast, are you worried?

Francesco – It was a wind range that they’ve always been fast in. For us, it’s a good indication of the things we still have to work on.

Q – Do you think they can take a race off you?

Francesco – This we have to see.

Q – Did you expect such a tough battle?

Francesco – We knew that this was going to be difficult, we still have to finish, so we have to concentrate and do our best always.

Q – What do you think of Victory going so fast downwind without the spinnaker pole?

Francesco – That you don’t have to have a spinnaker pole to sail downwind. I think this was one of the races where the boat behind was gaining on the downwind leg. Definitely they were fine with the spinnaker and no pole. Probably we didn’t expect that. So now we have to ask ourselves whether we were fast.