The Unbeaten Get Beaten

After a postponement, waiting for the wind, Team New Zealand and Team Origin lost their unbeaten records on the first day of Round 2 racing in Auckland.

Damiani Team Italia gave a wake up call to Emirates Team New Zeland. It looked like the home team had won the start, when Dean Barker forced the Italian boat to tack away and go around the committee boat, but Vasco Vascotto made a brilliant recovery to cross the line very close to the Kiwis and on the favored right hand side. From then on the Italians controlled the race and, although Barker’s boys tried every trick in the book to force a mistake, nothing worked.

TeamOrigin looked like they might be about to beat Alinghi for the second time in this event, having led a hard fought race from the start until the final leg, but it was not to be. Ed Baird described what happened “On the last run we were able to put the pressure on them, take their wind and that was the race. Both Brad and the whole crew worked very hard to make that happen – the guys did a great job of handling someone else’s boat in a lot of tricky situations."

The third of the Gold fleet races was the least exciting, with BMW Oracle starting better than a Luna Rossa team that seemed rather listless and extending over each leg to win by 58 seconds. In the Silver fleet K-Challenge beat Greek Challenge and China Team got its first win of the series over an unlucky Shosholoza. The South African gennaker ripped at the third mark rounding and ended up trailing behind the boat. By the time the mess was sorted and Paolo Cian got sailing again, Ian Williams was 200 metes ahead and on the way to a very welcome win.Pic by Ian Roman and more here.