Swiss fall behind in America’s Cup thriller
In a classic duel on high seas, the Kiwi challengers have pulled ahead 2-1 after beating defending Swiss champion Alinghi in a gripping race with eight lead changes.
Emirates Team New Zealand, which nearly had a crew member fall overboard earlier in the race, won the bow-to-bow battle to the finish on Tuesday to rally for a 25-second win in the best-of-nine series.
New Zealand gave up the start to guard their right-hand advantage in the erratic and shifting conditions and the move paid off as the Kiwis took a 300-metre lead up the first upwind lap.
But a poor spinnaker set around the second marker almost threw bowman Richard Meacham over the side and allowed the Swiss back into the race up the third leg.
Alinghi beat the Kiwis to round the final marker by a boat-length, but the New Zealand team split to the left and found a stronger wind shift. The lead then changed three times on the final run before the Kiwis crossed the line for a hard-fought victory that handed Alinghi its first deficit in America’s Cup racing.
The fourth race for the Auld Mug, international sport’s oldest trophy, is scheduled for Wednesday.
Swell
Wind blew in all directions across the course, generating large swells and testing both teams’ afterguard, with decision-making the most important complement to boat speed.
After coming in on starboard at the start, the Kiwis immediately engaged the Swiss as both teams circled with the priority being to take the right.
The NZL-92 boat won that battle but paid for it with a slow start, as the SUI-100 yacht came off the line eight seconds in front.
Alinghi eventually tacked back towards their opponents as the soft breeze on the left softened. With the boats nearly one kilometre apart, the Swiss did not want to let their opponents get away as the conditions favoured the NZL-92 yacht.
The Kiwis bobbed up the right, easily slicing through the rising swell with enough pace to make the first cross for the first time in the series.
The Kiwis raced around the first marker and past their opponents – who were still going the other way – with a lead of 1 minute and 23 seconds.
Pressure
Alinghi sent 49-year-old Murray Jones up the rig to scope out the weather ahead to catch up with its speed, just as the Kiwis had traveller Adam Beashel up his own mast for most of the downwind laps.
Alinghi’s gybes downwind were stiff and their sets were slower, but the Kiwis still felt the Swiss advancing.
The pressure showed as Meacham clung to the ropes to keep from falling off the bow as the NZL-92 rounded the second marker, and the sloppy jib takedown during a sudden gust saw the Kiwis’ kite get tangled up.
As New Zealand struggled to wind the entire sheet in, Alinghi moved back to within three boat-lengths.
Untidy jib
When the two boats met in the middle, the Swiss were higher on the left and in the lead.
Kiwi helmsman Dean Barker came straight in at Alinghi counterpart Ed Baird as both boats edged to the final marker.
Alinghi rounded with a 15-second lead as both performed clean spinnaker hoists.
A big split down the last lap had the Swiss to the right on a straight course as it avoided any unnecessary gybing.
But as the boats came back at each other near the end, an untidy jib cost Alinghi, which matched its loss tally from the whole of the last America’s Cup series.
swissinfo with agencies
The inaugural race was held off the Isle of Wight in 1851. America dominated the race right up until 1983 when Australia won the trophy.
In 1995 New Zealand became only the third country to win the competition, successfully defending their title in 2000.
The Swiss syndicate Alinghi sailed to victory against Black Magic in 2003 and became the first European team to win the Auld Mug.
The 2007 America’s Cup off the coast of Spain started on June 23 and runs until July 7 at the latest.
Yachts: a construction class is based around a formula or set of restrictions that the boat’s measurements must fit to be accepted. The America’s Cup is the most famous competition involving construction class boats.
Racing: harbour or buoy races are conducted in protected waters, and are quite short, usually taking anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. The most famous such event is the America’s Cup.
This kind of race is most commonly run over one or more laps of a triangular course marked by a number of buoys.
In the America’s Cup, the course is specifically set out to test the balance between boat speed and match racing ability in a team. The course is up to 18.55 nautical miles (34.35 kilometres) in length and consists of up to three laps of a right-handed windward-leeward course between a windward (upwind) mark at the top of the course and a leeward (downwind) gate near the bottom of the course. The start and finish line are the same.
Speed: one (international) knot is exactly equal to 1.852 kilometres per hour.
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