Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ) and Luna Rossa Challenge have today gone 4-1 up in the semi-finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup.
Luna Rossa provided the most exciting prestart performance of the challenger elimination to date. BMW Oracle entered from the pin end and tried to dig deep but were unable to therefore going into the dial up with Luna Rossa. Luna Rossa did a great job controlling their boat to maintain a nice separation in the dial up and prevent BMW Oracle from getting to the safer right hand side of the starting box. Oracle were left with no option but to do a high build and try and tack around the bow of Luna Rossa but this also failed. By this stage the boats were on the pin and BMW oracle tried to gybe around it but Luna Rossa were able to hunt them down. It was like BMW Oracle could not believe it they just kept going on port gybe even bringing the bow up to swing the stern out of the way, Luna Rossa display the "Y" flag and James Spithill screaming at the judges for two penalties to be given to BMW Oracle. The judges gave one but another soon after when BMW luffed Luna Rossa then swung their stern into the Italian boat. The judges actually also displayed the red flag requiring BMW Oracle to do the penalty immediately. From then on Luna Rossa did a good job staying between the opposition and the next mark, never giving BMW Oracle a passing lane.
In the second match of the day, the Spainish once again did a great job in the prestart forcing ETNZ to start slow at the boat. Unfortunately for Spain the right hand side paid and ETNZ lead around all marks, securing an important fourth win in the series.
So, Sunday could see another two teams going home. Going on the form to date and the fact that Luna Rossa have lead around all marks in the series, I think we will be saying bye bye to BMW Oracle and of course Spain who have performed above expectations and reached their goal.
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