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Valencia - 20.05.2007 - 17:14
Italians off to the Final; Desafío Español win again
BMW ORACLE Racing and Desafío Español faced ‘must win’ races on Sunday at the Louis Vuitton Cup. The Spanish won and live to race another day. The Americans lost and have been eliminated from the Louis Vuitton Cup.
The American team took to the water with a new skipper in Gavin Brady and new helmsman in Sten Mohr as previous skipper/helmsman Chris Dickson stepped off the boat. But it didn’t change the result - Luna Rossa Challenge led around the race track again, sealing the series win.
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Back to sleeping in late,
no more watching live at 5:30am
:(
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Pyewacket (left), without Roy E. Disney on board
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Pyewacket (left), without Roy E. Disney on board
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7 comments:
Oh...I remember Gavin Brady from Governor's Cup match racing in Long Beach racing against Scott Dickson. Gavin is very good. Thanks for the update!
http://www.americascup.com/en/news/detail.php?extended=0&idPage=0&idRubr=22&idIndex=0&idContent=25978
Valencia - 06.06.2007 - 17:34
Emirates Team New Zealand sweeps the Louis Vuitton Cup Final
Emirates Team New Zealand won its fifth consecutive race of the Final to sweep the Louis Vuitton Cup 5-0 and advance to the America’s Cup Match. Italy’s Luna Rossa Challenge put up a brave fight in this final contest on Wednesday afternoon, but were no match for the mighty Kiwis.
Dateline June 26.
Ricky's analysis of Alinghi's second loss to TNZ.
Another painful afternoon for Alinghi. The Kiwis did a fine job of fighting for the boat end of the line and the Swiss were happy to get across the line on stbd tack at full speed. Then the first brain fade. Brad failed to tack and cover. The whole world knew the right side of the track was favored, yet Brad and the boys wandered off to the left so that when they finally did get around to tacking they were nearly 200 meters back. Ordinarily the winner would be a foregone conclusion.
But the Kiwis boinked the douse and wound the kite into the genoa lead block and couldn't get the jib in, then muffed the cut tack, squandering virtually their entire lead. At the next cross Alinghi is handed the lead when NZ performs a weird and slow tack. This was Terry's brain fade. When the guy on port is bearing off to duck, he's handing you chunks of time. The right move would have been to force the duck then tack, effectively pinning Alinghi out at the Stbd layline. Okay, back to the comedy of errors: Alinghi has about a 3 boat lead coming away from the weather mark...close, but defensible. The Kiwis jibe a couple of times and the Swiss cover. On the next jibe Brad forgets about rules 1, 2 and 3 in match racing. I'll present them here for the non-sailors among us:
1. Stay between the opponent and the mark.
2. Stay between the opponent and the mark.
3. Stay between the opponent and the mark.
While Brad is busy forgetting about those simple but vital rules, the Kiwis scamper down the course, picking up the lead again. Fortunately they're almost to the finish line and there isn't much time left for another mistake so the Kiwis manage to sail across the line first. The Swiss, however, feel that there is time for one more mistake so they jibe just before the finish line, costing themselves another boatlength, but giving the crew a bit more jibing practice.
I'll wager the Kiwis could hardly believe the way the race went. The Swiss proved beyond a doubt that while they have a fast boat, they've grown soft and vulnerable. Brad is not the razor sharp tactician he once was. This race had better be a serious wake-up call for team Alinghi, or we'll be watching another AC regatta on the sunny waters of the Hauraki Gulf again.
Russell's got to be LHAO, while Ernesto ponders what might have been.
Dateline June 26
Ricky's analysis
One more thought. Imagine, if you will, being Brad. I'll give you an insight as to what it must be like for him:
Alinghi wins the start. Ed and Brad are confident while Ernesto fingers the rangefinder. Two minutes up the beat and the cockpit crew start sneaking more and more nervous glances over the weather rail. Ed concentrates on steering Alinghi, a slightly chubbier boat than NZ, through that vicious chop. Another minute passes and there are whispers among the cockpit crew, things like: "Those guys look pretty good over there." and "We shoulda tacked two minutes ago, man." You know, that kind of whispering as they begin to steal glances at Brad. The foredeck crew is quiet, leaning forward, waiting for the signal to jump to the mast and help the massive jib through the mast. The seconds tick by. Ernesto is squeezing the grip on the rangefinder so tight the juice is running out of the batteries. Another 30 seconds pass and now the entire cockpit crew is looking at Brad, trying with all their might to send him a single telepathic message: tack, Tack, TACK!!! But of course not a word is spoken. Finally Brad wakes up and says, "Let's tack", but the crew, finely tuned yacht racers, leap to the task before the first letter of "Let's" passes his lips.
Once the tack is completed the crew looks off the starboard bow and they don't need no stinkin rangefinder to see that they are firmly ensconced in the cheap seats. There are a few subtle shakes of the head among the crew as the fact that they just got hosed on the first part of the first beat of the biggest race of their lives sinks in. Oh, it's going to be a long afternoon for the crew of Alinghi, especially for Brad.
But wait, what's this?!! Unbefuckinleavable!!! The Kiwis have totally screwed the leeward mark!! "Come on guys, we're still in this!! Come on, make this the best douse of your lives, boys, and the drinks are on me!" Brad shouts.
Alinghi winds it up while the Kiwis struggle with their blown douse. "Holy moley. We're catching them." Brad heaves a sigh of relief as they converge, bow to bow. The gods have given Brad another chance and he probably can't believe his good fortune when NZ tacks UNDER him after he had given up and was bearing off to duck. Christ, what a race!!
Alas, Brad gets complacent again and lets NZ jibe away. You'd think he'd have learned something about the shifty Valencia breeze. But nope, Brad wanders off in the wrong direction while Barker puts the bow down and lets the big dog run.
Theres nothing left for Brad but to keep crew distracted by calling for another jibe at the finish. Well, it'll keep the boys busy so they don't have to just sit there as they cross well behind the Kiwis. If you think the day was long for Brad, imagine tonight. The boys'll be saying, "Hey Brad, it was only one race, anybody can f-up a race now and then." But the seeds of doubt have been sown. Brad steps aboard tomorrow with less confidence and more nervousness.
I'm still figuring out how to blog, so this post should be read before the last one. Don't fret, I'll get it right next time.
Dateline June 26
Ricky's analysis of race 3
Another painful afternoon for Alinghi. The Kiwis did a fine job of fighting for the boat end of the line and the Swiss were happy to get across the line on stbd tack at full speed. Then the first brain fade. Brad failed to tack and cover. The whole world knew the right side of the track was favored, yet Brad and the boys wandered off to the left so that when they finally did get around to tacking they were nearly 200 meters back. Ordinarily the winner would be a foregone conclusion.
But the Kiwi boinked the douse and wound the kite into the genoa lead block and couldn't get the jib in, then muffed the cut tack, squandering virtually their entire lead. At the next cross Alinghi is handed the lead when ETNZ performs a weird and slow tack. This was Terry's brain fade. When the guy on port is bearing off to duck, he's handing you chunks of time. The right move would have been to force the duck then tack, effectively pinning Alinghi out at the Stbd layline. Okay, back to the comedy of errors: Alinghi has about a 3 boat lead coming away from the weather mark...close, but defensible. The Kiwis jibe a couple of times and the Swiss cover. On the next jibe Brad forgets about rules 1, 2 and 3 in match racing. I'll present them here for the non-sailors among us:
1. Stay between the opponent and the mark.
2. Stay between the opponent and the mark.
3. Stay between the opponent and the mark.
While Brad is busy forgetting about those simple but vital rules, the Kiwis scamper down the course, picking up the lead again. Fortunately they're almost to the finish line and there isn't much time left for another mistake so the Kiwis manage to sail across the line first. The Swiss, however, feel that there is time for one more mistake so they jibe just before the finish line, costing themselves another boatlength, but giving the crew a bit more jibing practice.
I'll wager the Kiwis could hardly believe the way the race went. The Swiss proved beyond a doubt that while they have a fast boat, they've grown soft and vulnerable. Brad is not the razor sharp tactician he once was. This race had better be a serious wake-up call for team Alinghi, or we'll be watching another AC regatta on the sunny waters of the Hauraki Gulf again.
Russell's got to be LHAO, while Ernesto ponders what might have been.
June 29
Ricky's analysis
Today's race could have been a classic AC slug fest, but equipment failure took the slug out of the fest. Deano did a great job of forcing Alinghi over the start line before the gun went. As you know, both boats must be on the correct side of the line before the gun. Baird was fortunate to be able to sail way off to the right and into the spectator fleet. Why would he do that? Because the Kiwis forced him over the line and as weather boat he was obligated to keep clear of the leeward boat, which was doing everything to stay just to leeward of them. The spectator boats offered salvation to Ed as he went forward of a big old cruiser and NZ went behind, This gave him enough room to jibe and get clear of NZ. On the drag race back to the start line, Ed trailed the Kiwis and managed a decent start half a boatlength behind NZ on stbd, headed out to the correct side of the race track.
In a case of role reversal, the Swiss drag raced out to the starboard layline just to leeward and behind NZ. This is a minor violation of Ricky's fifth rule of match racing: When behind, do something. For you students of match racing, remember, if you're the trailing boat, the closer you get to the layline, the fewer options you have. If you just give up and trail the windward boat out to the edge of the world you run out of options and you've just handed the weather boat the leg. If you are smart and aggressive, you tack well before the layline and move the game back to the middle of the chessboard. By doing that, you give your opponent opportunities to make mistakes and you open up possibilities for passing that are only a dream if you've sailed out past the layline.
So, Brad and the boys are content to trail the Kiwis out to the layline. What did we learn from this? Well, the most important lesson is that in 14-15 knots of wind, NZ is every bit of the boat Alinghi is, contrary to popular belief. Before today the smart money was betting that in 15 kts and above, the Swiss owned this event. I liked seeing Deano living large right there on Alinghi's weather hip. That'll give the Swiss something to think about tonight.
So NZ rounds ahead of Alinghi by a boatlength or two. Knowing Terry as we do, we're sure he's going to point NZ deep and stay between Brad and the mark.
Uh oh, the bowman is on the horn and he says we've got a bit of hole in the luff of the whomper. Terry: "How bad is it, can we sail the leg with it?"
"I dunno, boss, she looks pretty bad to me." says Jeremy into his waterlogged mic.
"Okay, get the A2 on deck and hooked up. We'll hoist it as soon as you ....whoooaashit!! The kite just blew!!! Get the other kite up NOW!"
Jeremy, "Wait, wait, I don't have the sheets and guys hooked on....Oh noo!" The second kite goes up without sheets and guys, which means it might as well be ths Swiss flag.
Ernesto is busy taking a bearing with the rangefinder, but he forgets the numbers on the display as the sight of NZ's shredded kite fills the viewfinder. By then every one on Alinghi is watching as, unbelievably, there are two kites flying on NZ, one in tatters and the other out like, well, like the Swiss flag. Ironically, Switzerland's flag is red with a white cross on it. I'm sure, however, that the boys on both boats weren't thinking in metaphors at that particular moment.
Anyway, here's NZ, wallowing down the course with two kites up,(neither drawing) and the big Swiss boat rolling by like the TGV. Brad, not doing too well in this regatta so far, breathes a sigh of relief. He wants to wave to his friend Barker as the go by but he knows Ernesto doesn't like his boys fraternizing with the enemy.
The Kiwis struggle to get another kite up, but they're running out of the damn things. You can only carry so many of them, you know. So they rummage around in the bottom of the boat and find one more asymmetrical that looks like it'll hang together and they hoist it and trundle on down to the leeward mark.
The rest of the race is pretty unremarkable. The Kiwis keep chipping away at Alinghi's lead, but nothing is going to keep the Swiss boat from winning this one unless they break a sail or Brad has another brain fade.
So what have we learned from today's racing? Well, the first and most important thing is that the Kiwi boat is more than just a light air sliver. the boat seems to be a match and more for Alinghi in everything except for the 10-14 knot wind range. In that range, the Swiss boat may be a bit faster, but we're expecting winds more like what we witnessed today for the rest of the regatta, so the Kiwis have to feel fairly comfortable with the horse they brung to this event. On the other hand, Ricky sees some vulerability in the Swiss side. Mainly, they appear to have come to the regatta thinking they had boatspeed on the Kiwis, and the Kiwis may have been playing a bit of a head game, letting the world think they were bringing a knife to a gunfight.
For us spectators it means that for the first time in about 20 years the AC regatta is proving to be extremely interesting. I could go on about the nuances in the design of each boat, which is by itself very interesting if you're into such things.
Anyway, the commentators are all atwitter over the 'momentum' of Alinghi, but if the Kiwis can keep their boat together, they still have a chance of recouping the cup.
Dateline July 1
Ricky's analysis
No racing today. The wind gods picked up their ball and went home. So I'll give you an analysis of race five, in which the Kiwis tore a page out of Brad Butterworth's AC book.
Yesterday Ed Baird actually took it to the Kiwis at the start and had them pinned on the left side of the starting line but Deano managed to wriggle off the hook and jibed in front of Alinghi and got away for a good start. Here is where Terry stumbled. As the boats drag raced out to the starborad layline, the Kiwis had the full measure of the Swiss, but Terry forgot rule number one and let the Swiss get some lateral separation and Brad pounced, snatching the lead after a tacking duel in a right shift just this side of the weather mark. This AC regatta will go down in history as the most competitve ever, with the winner of each race doing it by sailing smarter than the competition. Remember what Dennis Conner says about yacht racing, "He who makes the fewest mistakes wins."
So Alinghi rounds the top mark in front and keeps a tight cover on the Kiwis, sailing a good defensive race until Brad lets go again and allows the Kiwis, who were well behind, to jibe away and pick up a left shift and sail right up to Alinghi's transom. But wait, what the bloody...Terry jibes away!! Match racing aficionados across the world scream at their flat screens, "Nooo Terry, don't do it!! No, please don't....Ahh, he's gone and done it."
Hutchinson jibed away and left the Swiss to sail down the course and jibe in a puff and scamper on down to the finish line a hundred meters or so ahead of NZ.
Terry suffered a tactical breakdown with that jibe. Those of you who don't follow the game all that closely may ask why it was such a bad move to jibe away at that critical moment. The answer is that they were sailing down to the port layline, basically the edge of the world in match racing. The Swiss couldn't go on much longer, they were going to have to jibe to lay the finish. All Terry had to do was stay right on their transom and jibe exactly when they did and they would have blanketed the Swiss boat's wind and accelerated ahead to a hero's welcome as the fanatical Kiwi fans blasted their horns and shouted themselves hoarse over the Kiwis spectacular come from behind win. Of course that's not what happened. Why did Terry jibe? Well, one can only speculate, but the only logical reason is that he thought he noticed some big wind over on the left side of the course and wanted to sail over there and take advantage of it. Of course it was just a figment of his imagination. There was nothing over there and Terry tossed a fighting chance for a figment. Foo! Terry suffered from the same mistake that generals, captains and leaders throughout history skewer themselves on. He let wishful thinking obscure reality. He wanted to believe that there was more over there than there actually was instead of facing the fact that he was going to have to maneuver perfectly over the Swiss and fight to the death right there at the port layline. Still it was an exciting race in spite of the disappointing denouement.
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