Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Louis Vuitton Semi Final - Match 1

The first races of the semi finals were completed today in a shifty westerly breese 10-15knots. In semi-final B Luna Rossa and BMW Oracle took the prestart into the spectator fleet which limited the engagement. When they came back out into the starting box Luna Rossa was to leeward and the two boats crossed the start line about even and set off on a long starboard tack. Luna Rossa was the first to tack onto port with BMW Oracle tacking to leeward, but almost immediately Luna Rossa picked up a left hand shift and increased their gauge on BMW Oracle. Torben Grael tactician on Luna Rossa then showed the balls to tack away from his opposition into a bigger left hand shift to round the first windward mark 52 seconds ahead of BMW Oracle. To indicate how shifty it was out there the boats split on the run and by the leeward mark the boats were bow to bow with BMW Oracle gaining the starboard hand advantage and forced a brief luffing match just before the leeward gate. Luna Rossa rounded the left hand mark and BMW Oracle the right, But the left paid and Luna Rossa opened up an even bigger lead to round the second top mark 1:21 ahead of BMW Oracle. It wasn't over yet! With just 500m to go the breese started to shift sharply to the east. BMW Oracle desperately tried to get the advantage by going out to meet the new wind but only found themselves in a big hole. Luna Rossa won by 2:19, a delta not really indicating how close the match really was.

In semi final A the Spanish were aggressive in the prestart against ETNZ and it looked like Barker was on the verge of choking! But ETNZ were able to secure the right hand side at the start with precision timing. Spain managed to bounce ETNZ to the right after a few minutes, unfortunately straight into a nice right hand shift and that was basically the end of the race for the Spanish. ETNZ kept a close cover on each leg of the course always staying between the next mark and their opposition. The Spanish will no doubt throw everything at ETNZ again tomorrow.

ETNZ lead Spain

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