Team Dennis Conner takes the lead

by Magnus Wheatley 15 Nov 2002 07:41 GMT

Photo © Jon Nash Matt Cornwell guides Wight Lightning up to start Photo © Jon Nash GBR Challenge choose the right-hand side of the course for the beat Photo © Rick Tomlinson Stars & Stripes lead down the run

The writing is painfully on the wall for Team GBR and Le Defi Areva after a day that saw both teams fall to the most crushing of defeats and could spell the end of both campaigns at this, the quarter final stage of the Louis Vuitton Cup. Meanwhile in the big-gun match ups at the top of the table there was a truly outstanding performance by Oracle BMW Racing and another workmanlike showing from Alinghi. There can be absolutely no doubt now that unless Team New Zealand has a rocket-ship up its sleeve then the America’s Cup is off to either San Francisco or the European venue of Ernesto Bertarelli’s choosing.

For Team GBR there were quite simply no positives to take from their flight against Stars & Stripes who are beginning to sail smart by refusing to engage Wight Lightning, preferring to out-pace the British in their new boat. Peter Harrison must be ruing the decision to go down the radical path with GBR-78 as their raceboat GBR-70 hasn’t been worked up with an effective stablemate and is looking woefully off the pace. The sailing team however, can shoulder no blame as they continue to show great boathandling and sailing skills but when the hardware doesn’t perform it’s tough on those guys.

From the outset Stars & Stripes opted for the run and hide approach and trailed back in to the start line in the leeward position having entered the box from the favoured starboard end. Ken Read hit the line with a slightly better judgement of time on distance and handed an immediate 2-second disadvantage to GBR. From there on the Americans just powered away to extend on every leg of the course, despite throttling back, and the final finishing delta was a telling 2 minute 10 seconds. The wind strength of 17-20 knots clearly suited Stripes today and their afterguard has pulled together, no doubt after a few choice words from Dennis Conner, and are at long last performing like their pedigree suggests. Sorry to say it fans but in the horsepower stakes Stars & Stripes has the jump on Wight Lightning.

Out on course Romeo however Oracle BMW Racing hammered another nail into the fast sinking coffin of Paul Allen and Craig McCaw’s OneWorld challenge with yet another devastating performance. Having won the start by dint of crossing the line at full-pace Oracle BMW, helmed by Peter Holmberg, looked like a sure-fire winner as the first shift went their way and they loosely covered OneWorld who banged the right-hand corner hard. For once the desperate tactic (we’ve all done it!) worked, as a monster right shift negated the Oracle BMW lead and OneWorld leapt ahead. Yet despite rounding the first mark with an 8-second advantage OneWorld’s tenure was short-lived as Chris Dickson and Ian Burns totally aced the first run by gybing on two beautiful shifts and as the two boats approached the leeward lay-line it was Oracle BMW with an inside overlap. The afterguard then rammed home hard their advantage by holding OneWorld out way beyond the layline before gybing first and snatching a lead that, in truth, should have been always rightfully theirs.

From there on in, Oracle BMW extended their lead up and down successive beats and runs to hold a 41-second psychologically deflating lead by the last mark. For the last run the crew of the sinister-looking, black hulled marauder just eased off the gas to cross the finish line with a 19-second victory that owed more to outstanding crew work than any significant speed edge. However the rumour on the dock is that Oracle BMW has introduced ‘something new’ for this round and in the first two races were holding back and not showing all the tricks they have up their sleeve. I did note that Chris Dickson kept on playing with the trim tab wheel yesterday but was conspicuously not doing so again today…Is Larry Ellison sandbagging? It wouldn’t surprise anyone.

Another red-hot favourite for the ‘sandbaggers of the year’ contest is without doubt the Swiss Alinghi team who are making it seem like hard work in dispatching the Italian Prada team down to the repercharge round. Finishing today with the same delta of 8-seconds as yesterday I have to admit that I'm not convinced that Coutts and Butterworth are giving it their all and are really toying with the hapless Italians. Level that question at the ‘masters of mind-games’ and you get the obvious PR response but today there were some obvious professional mistakes that kept the deltas down. Up the first beat Alinghi pulled a double tack, that looked like the crew had a riding turn, however the action replay showed no such problems and there was no tell-tale sign of Brad Butterworth losing his cool with the crew.

Then there’s the question mark over Alinghi’s downwind speed. Oh really, pull the other one guys, how about trimming the kite properly and not sailing over-deep that might stop Prada catching up! In any case Alinghi just squeaked ahead and took the gun with an 8-second winning margin-the populist complaint is that Formula 1 is a fix and I’d bet that Russell Coutts has spent some time with Michael Schumacher and Jean Todt and that the mind-games are in full swing down Halsey Street. Alinghi should have Ferrari as their title sponsor…

So from Ferrari to Minardi as the poor old French are having a shocker and are hard at work preparing for their leaving party. There’s the small matter of a jolly around the racecourse tomorrow to contend with first and then the government backed nuclear agency can count the cost of about £25 million badly spent. Today Philippe Presti and the rest of the rabbits in the headlights were run down by the Swedish Victory challenge as they cruised to a 1 minute 12 second victory. Le Defi is a classic case of too little, too late and they had no answer to Magnus Holmberg and his team of ultra-polite sailors who sailed a moderate race whilst coaxing their boat around the racecourse never really having to hit top gear.

If there is racing tomorrow (the forecast doesn’t look good) then I’m afraid it’s going to be ‘au revoir’ France-barring of course a miracle.