Louis Vuitton Pacific Series at Auckland, New Zealand Day 5
by Keith Taylor 3 Feb 2009 07:35 GMT
30 January - 14 February 2009
South Africa’s Shosholoza topples Alinghi
The biggest upset in the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series came today on Auckland Harbour as South Africa’s Team Shosholoza slam-dunked the reigning America’s Cup winners Alinghi, from Switzerland.
Without a win after three days of racing, the South Africans skippered by Italian match racer Paolo Cian came out with all guns blazing against the Swiss boat helmed by two-time cup winner Ed Baird.
Cian used the favored starboard tack entry to the starting box to engage Baird in a prolonged dialup above the starting line that stretched out over more than three drawn-out minutes. It was a virtuoso performance. The American had the option of tacking away but opted to hold his boat motionless, head to wind in anticipation of an error by his opponent. Cian never blinked and stayed in control until he peeled off to return in a perfectly-timed big sweeping turn below the line to start at speed. Baird was forced to follow nearly three boat lengths astern in his wake.
“It was the classic start that you want to keep in your mind for a long while,” said Cian. “We had the starboard tack advantage. At two minutes they had just one escape for them to roll on top of us and try to extend to the right. They chose to keep it slow.” Cian added that the tide was pushing both boats towards the committee boat and his crew did a great job of executing the turn back to the line.
From there, things went from bad to worse. Alinghi lost time on every leg, especially the bottom of the first spinnaker run where a light patch of breeze and a wind shift cost valuable meters and left Baird’s foredeck crew scrambling to muzzle their spinnaker after rounding the mark. Alinghi was over a kilometre astern and 3m49s away when the South Africans finished.
Conditions were perfect for racing, with bright sunshine, a puffy, shifty and warm north-easterly wind at 14-16 knots, and flat water in the Rangitoto Channel.
In the other races, BMW Oracle Racing defeated Damiani Italia by 52 seconds in a race that was close for the first three legs. The French boat Pataugas K-Challenge put up a good fight and engaged Emirates Team New Zealand for the first weather leg of their race but the Kiwis won by 1m38s. Greek offshore sailor Theodoros Tsoulfas took the helm of the Greek Challenge today to race Britain’s TEAMORIGIN and kept the margin close for two legs before the British pulled away to win by 58s.
Round Robin 1 Scores:
Pool A
Emirates Team New Zealand, 4pts
BMW Oracle Racing, 3pts
Damiani Italia Challenge, 2pts
Pataugas K Challenge, 1pt
China Team, 0pts
Pool B
TEAMORIGIN, 4pts
Alinghi, 2pts
Luna Rossa, 2pts
Team Shosholoza, 1pt
Greek Challenge, 0pts
After a lay day tomorrow, racing starts again on Thursday in the second round robin. In the Gold Fleet, Alinghi in NZL 84 will race TEAMORIGIN in NZL 92, Damiani Italia Challenge in NZL 84 will race Emirates Team New Zealand in NZL 92 and BMW Oracle Racing in NZL 92 will race Luna Rossa in NZL 84. In the Silver Fleet, Pataugas K-Challenge in USA 87 will race Greek Challenge in USA 98, while Team Shosholoza in USA 87 will race China Team in USA 98.
The event web site www.louisvuitton-pacificseries.com went live last week in English French and Italian. Race reports, press reports, features and photographs are being updated daily. The site includes a link to live streaming radio commentary about the racing originating from Auckland’s radio BSport Sailing 103FM.
The Louis Vuitton Pacific Series is being organised in association with the New Zealand Government, Emirates Team New Zealand, the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, Auckland City and SKYCITY Entertainment Group.
Day 5 Results:
BMW Oracle Racing beat Damiani Italia Challenge 55s
Shosholoza beat Alinghi 3m 49s
Emirates Team New Zealand beat Pataugas K-Challenge 1m 38s
Team Origin beat Greek Challenge by 58s
No racing Wednesday – it’s a lay day
Big upset – and ETNZ unbeaten (from Warren Douglas, Emirates Team New Zealand)
Day 5 of the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series and the end of the first round robin brought one huge upset – Shosholoza beat Alinghi - and another win for Emirates Team New Zealand.
Grant Dalton says Alinghi was just plain unlucky. “It was one of those days that if you got on the wrong side of a wind shift you were really on the wrong side. I don’t read anything at all into that particular result. We wouldn’t even debrief that one… it could happen to anyone. I have watched Alinghi going round the track and they are sharp.”
The breeze today was a north-east 12 to 16 knots.
Up against Pataugas K-Challenge, Dean Barker won the start and then he and the crew patiently went about the business of putting together a performance that would ensure an unbeaten record in the first round robin.
Barker and the afterguard (tactician Ray Davies. strategist Adam Beashel and navigator Kevin Hall) took no risks and closed down the options for K-Challenge establishing a comfortable lead on the first run (after a closely fought first beat) and extending to the finish.
Crew work was faultless throughout, the team demonstrating that any rustiness remaining from an 18-month enforced layoff from racing together in the big boats, was well and truly gone.
The margins tell the story: first mark ETNZ by 21sec, second mark 34sec and extending to 1m38sec at the finish.
Tactician Ray Davies said: “Dean did a very good job on the pre-start and we had full control, but with both boats on the port tack on the first beat the French were doing very well to leeward and gaining. We managed to get another little leftie and got strong again with a good lee bow tack.
“At the top mark we managed to squeeze them out and control them. After making more gains and leading by 30 or 40 sec we were able to sail our own race.”
Grant Dalton said he was happy the team finished the first round robin unbeaten “but there’s still a lot of racing in this particular regatta.”
Emirates Team New Zealand finished the round robin top of Pool A with four points, followed by BMW Oracle 3, Damiani Italia Challenge 2, Pataugas K-Challenge 1, China Team 0.
In Pool B, Team Origin finished on 4 points, followed by Alinghi 2, Luna Rossa 2, Team Shosholoza 1, Greek Challenge 0.
For the second round robin the fleet is again divided into two - a “gold fleet” comprising ETNZ, Origin, Damiani Italia, Alinghi, BMW Oracle and Luna Rossa and a silver fleet of Shosholoza, Greek Challenge, K-Challenge and China Team.
Objective Round Robin 2 for “Pataugas by K-Challenge” (from Stephanie Nadin, K-Challenge)
This is the end of the first Round Robin in the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series, but no extra point today for Pataugas by K-Challenge for the match they raced against the host of the competition in Auckland: Emirates Team New Zealand.
Meanwhile, the team is already very focused on its target for Round Robin 2 since yesterday, as they already knew that they would need to go through the silver fleet, where they will have to finish within the two firsts out of four competitors in this group in order to reach the quarter finals. Everything is still possible for the French team, even if the way is not as simple as in the ideal scenario, which consisted in racing in the gold fleet.
The silver fleet group will include Pataugas by K-Challenge, Shosholoza, Greek Challenge and China Team.
After Round Robin 2, clocks will be reset for a new start.
Sebastien Col, Skipper and Helmsman for Pataugas by K-Challenge: “the conclusion of this Round Robin is not positive, as we finish 4th in our group out of 5, with one point, which is not enough to race in the gold fleet. We only had one win against China Team, we lost an important match against Damiani Italia Challenge, and then against BMW Oracle Racing and Emirates Team New Zealand we were not at our best, and we didn't manage to get one more point today. So we will race in the silver fleet, but the way is still long, and we will do our best to reach the quarter finals. The group is a great united team, we want to fight till the end together, even if the way is longer than expected. Nothing is over yet.”
Stephane Kandler, K-Challenge's CEO: “we can't be satisfied with this first Round Robin, where we have now to go through the repechages and start it all over again. Pataugas by K-Challenge will now have to show its capability to react and to come back in the game for the quarter finals, even if it is a more difficult way. I think we can do it, but we saw in this first round that every team can be beaten, so we still have some work to raise our racing level and to create the necessary catch in order to be more efficient.”
Tomorrow will be a lay day for the teams, which will be perfect for them to recover and charge their batteries again, in order to start the Round Robin 2 in the best shape on February 5. Pataugas by K-Challenge will race against Greek Challenge for its first match in Round Robin 2.
First ever Greek helmsman on America’s Cup-level competition (from Pierre Orphanidis)
After Saturday’s first ever victory, Greek Challenge wrote another page in the history of Greek sailing on Tuesday. For the first time ever, a Greek sailor took the helm of an America’s Cup yacht during a world-class event. Theodoros Tsoulfas, prominent offshore Greek sailor, helmed the Greek Challenge yacht in the team’s last race of Louis Vuitton Pacific Series Round Robin 1, against Team Origin from the UK.
Gavin Brady, the New Zealander that steered the yacht so far in the Series, switched positions with Tsoulfas on Tuesday and called tactics in what turned out to be a very tricky and shifty day. In addition, 11 out of the 17 crew were Greeks, marking another first. Never before in the Series, Greek sailors were the majority onboard.
The race was closer and tighter than what one would have expected, especially against an outstanding helmsman of the caliber of Ben Ainslie, 3-time gold Olympic medalist. Greek Challenge crossed the starting line on the right and Origin on the left, slightly ahead. During the first beat, the Greeks managed to stay on Origin’s trail, rounding the first weather mark a mere 14 seconds behind the British yacht. Despite being a novice, Tsoulfas was able to stay close in the run and round the leeward gate 17 seconds behind Ben Ainslie. In the second half of the race, Greek Challenge slipped back and crossed the finish line 58 seconds behind the British yacht.
Greek Challenge finishes Round Robin 1 with 1 win and 3 losses. Due to the penalty received in the race against Alinghi, Greek Challenge has no points and will now compete in the Silver Fleet, together with China Team, Shosholoza and Pataugas K-Challenge. There will be no racing on Wednesday and the Greek team will come back on the water of Waitemata harbor on Thursday, facing Pataugas K-Challenge.
Quotes of the day
Theodoros Tsoulfas, helmsman on Greek Challenge: “Without any doubt, this has been an amazing experience. I have been helming boats up to 50ft and this is a quantum leap for me. I was very nervous but I managed to steer the boat thanks to Gavin’s help. We made a number of mistakes in the race but I think we corrected most of them and achieved a respectable result.
There is no comparison between ourselves and the other participants in this event; we have only been 12 times on these yachts while the rest of the teams have been taking part in the America’s Cup for years. In fact, we are honored to be here and stand against them. It’s a fantastic and unique opportunity. We are humbled by the talent around us in this event and it would have been ludicrous to come here and pretend we are equals with Ben Ainslie, Ian Percy, Andrew Simpson or Mike Sanderson. Winning a race is obviously a great feeling but our main goal in this event is to learn.
We are passionate about learning and the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series is just a stepping stone in a long process of building a Greek America’s Cup team.”
Gavin Brady, tactician on Greek Challenge: “Tsoulfas did a good job today, considering the fact it was the first time he steered an America’s Cup yacht. Don’t forget who we were racing against. Still, we sailed well and Origin beat us by less than a minute. The majority of the crew was Greek today and obviously had less experience but we are building here a team for the future, for the long term. So far we have achieved reasonable results and once again, I think that today Greek Challenge was better than yesterday. That’s our goal.”
18th man
The Greek team was honored today by the presence of famous kiwi sportsman Bruce Kendall as its 18th man. Competing in windsurfing, his first medal was a bronze at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. At the 1988 Olympics in Seoul he improved to win the gold medal. Bruce also competed at the following Olympics in Barcelona, just failing to win another medal due to faulty equipment. At the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Kendall was a sailing coach for the New Zealand team.
In 1993 he won the Olympic Class World Championships with 9 firsts and one second place. This was the first time a New Zealander won an Olympic Class Windsurfing World Championships. The following year he finished 2nd overall.
Bruce is the older brother of Barbara Kendall who is also an Olympic gold medallist. They are the only brother and sister to have achieved this feat for New Zealand.
His connection to Greek sports dates from the Athens Olympics when Bruce coached Greek champion Nikos Kaklamanakis to the silver medal.