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Match 6 Review / Match 7 Preview: Valinghi or ValeNZia

Posted 1 year, 3 months ago

Match 6 Review / Match 7 Preview: Valinghi or ValeNZia
¡Buenos días! It's a magnificent morning in VLC -- cool, clear and dry. At the moment there is no breeze to speak of, but almost all the wx gurus are predicting another SE seabreeze of 9-12 knots. With Alinghi on match point, that should give us yet another barnburner / bellringer / humdinger (you choose) of a race today. We defer to the old pro, R. Percival Fisher, whose column today for the Sail-World site sums it all up better than your amateur-act of an Ed. could ever do. Bob confirms how spectacularly close this 32nd edition of the Cup has turned out to be, and just what the AC doctor(s) ordered.... Six races have been held and the biggest winning margin has been 35 seconds. Every race could have gone either way and the forecast superiority of the defender has been proved to be a myth. Not since 1983, when the racing was anything but close and should have been over in five races (in those days it was first to win four) but for breakdowns, has there been anything like this. Flight bookings are being altered daily and there will be a huge crowd at Valencia airport when the Cup is won, but will that be on Sunday, Tuesday or Wednesday? Emirates Team New Zealand has left itself the equivalent of the North Face of the Eiger to climb ? win three races in a row and stop Alinghi from winning a single race. It?s not impossible ? John Bertrand and his crew on Australia II did just that, as did Harold Vanderbilt with Rainbow in 1934, from match point including a come back from 6:39 down at the halfway turn in the third race. So too did Charles Francis Adams with Resolute over Sir Thomas Lipton?s Shamrock IV in 1920. This time however, there is nothing between the boats ? they appear to be the same speed in a wide range of conditions ? and it will be a battle of wills and wits. It is sailor against sailor, team against team, which is exactly what it should be. Neither design team has progressed any further than the other; what we are seeing is match racing of the highest order. The huge spectator fleet and the massive amount of people that it is carrying, together with the hordes ashore is awed by the racing. As far as the fans are concerned, this could go on for ever. Full story Yesterday our 300 VIP guests saw another thrilling day of action in what has turned out to be the closest racing in the AC Match ever. Even many of our Spanish guests -- most of whom normally would cheer for Alinghi as a successful defense means the Cup would stay at least in Europe if not in Spain -- were cheering on ETNZ in the hopes of keeping this marvelous match alive as long as possible. As the yachts towed out the Alinghi kids were out in force along the AC Canal... ...as were the boisterous Kiwi fans amassed at the restaurant across from the Foredeck Club. Far from being disrespectful per some press reports, we have only seen them add a lot of colour and energy to the scene. As we motored past on Alcor yesterday, (with our BMW ORACLE Racing flag on proud display) they even gave us a huge friendly cheer and started chanting, "Bring Back Dickson! Bring Back Dickson!" That will put a smile on Dicko's face, from whom we received a nice email the other day saying that he, too, was enjoying reading the BOB. By all accounts CD's commentary on NZ radio and television has been incisive and entertaining. In the pre-start it was the reverse of Friday as Alinghi got the better of ETNZ, and the latter were lucky not to have been penalized for jibing in front of Alinghi at one point (not the photo above). The interp the umps use is that the bottom third of the main must be filled for the jibe to be considered complete. It appeared to most observers that Alinghi had altered course, and needed to alter course, before ENTZ's main had filled. Off the line Alinghi had a slightly better start and grabbed the right, which they wanted. Dr Roger "Clouds" Badham had told the Kiwis the left would come good, so they wanted to be tight leeward -- hence the risky jibe to lead back to the line. After a very close drag race out to the port (left) layline, the left did come good (nice work, Clouds), and ETNZ slipped ahead and into a two boatlength lead at the top mark.... ...which they maintained down the run. At the gate ETNZ chose the (upwind) left end so they could once again take the left side of the upwind leg. But the gate was slightly biased to starboard (right), and Alinghi took it more to avoid the dirty air of ETNZ (see our previous post about The Gate). That not only gained Brad & Co. a boatlength, but put them out to the right on Leg 3. This turned out to be right in every sense of the word when Alinghi found slightly more pressure on the right about two miles up the 3.3 mile leg. ETNZ got sucked into a tackiing duel which, at least in yesterday's conditions, was to Alinghi's liking. Clearly ETNZ (Terry!) should have broken if off after losing a half boatlength in the first two exchanges, but they didn't, and better tacking speed and a little more pressure on the right helped Alinghi eke by ETNZ. Alinghi had about the same 2bl lead around the top mark that ETNZ had enjoyed the first time around. That turned out to be the story of the race as the final run, and ensuing jibing duel, was unremarkable save for the excellent crew work on both boats, different jibing styles (ETNZ were doing inside jibes while Alinghi did outsides), and a last minute surge by ETNZ on a streak of wind and nice angle that brought them right up to Alinghi's stern. But it was too little too late, and Alinghi won by just under 30 secs... ...to the delight of the increasingly large number of Swiss fans in evidence here in VLC on and off the water. The Big Cheese had pulled another AC win out of his hat, or elsewhere. He is now 19-2 in AC matches, and ha him team on match point for what would be an unprecedented fourth AC win in a row. Win lose or draw today, 19-2 is already an incredible run -- and not just for Brad, but Dean, Murray, Simon and Warwick as well. It was tumultuous tow in thanks to the... wake of the huge (800+) spectator boat fleet) and the... ...tens of thousands lining the AC canal cheering lustily for both of these fine teams. No doubt history will rate them along side DC's and JB's 1983 teams as two of the very best in the long and storied history of the Auld Mug. Can today's racing ever top what we have already seen? Can't wait to find out. Speakng of incomparable, the photos above are by Gilles Martin-Raget. Full Story »

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