Alinghi, America's Cup & Louis Vuitton Cup

Alinghi 1 – Emirates Team New Zealand 1

Photo credit: Ivo Rovira / Alinghi

Photo credit: Ivo Rovira / Alinghi

Photo credit: Ivo Rovira / Alinghi

The 32nd America’s Cup Match was evened at 1-1 today when the Defender, Alinghi, crossed the finish line 28 seconds behind the Challenger, Emirates Team New Zealand.

In an 8-11 knot east/southeasterly, Alinghi led for the first half of the race. The Swiss team started to the left of ETNZ, won the first cross on the first leg and led by 19 seconds at the first mark. ETNZ made a small gain on the downwind leg, but Alinghi held the lead to round 13 seconds ahead at the leeward mark.

The turning point in the race came on the second upwind leg. Alinghi rounded the leeward gate to starboard while ETNZ rounded it to port. That put Alinghi to the left of their competition beginning the third leg. Initially it was a strong position as Alinghi led by between 50 and 60 metres. ETNZ gained the lead about one third of the way up the leg when the Challenger got to the left of Alinghi and lifted off in a puff. With both boats on port Alinghi was able to squeeze up from leeward, but when both boats tacked to starboard and the wind shifted to the right, the Swiss Defender was up above the layline to the mark.
“Heading up that second beat, there was a lot of spectator chop and we seemed to lose a bit of speed, we checked the rudder and keel and couldn’t see anything, but we didn’t feel that good up the second beat and they [ETNZ] closed in on us and took the lead,” said Rodney Ardern, runner/grinder onboard SUI100.

The pre-start saw both boats in the deep right hand corner of the box. Alinghi led back to the line with ETNZ pushing. With one minute to the start Alinghi tacked to port to get closer to the committee boat end of the line. Alinghi tacked back to starboard with about 45 seconds to the start and ETNZ tacked to starboard on their windward quarter. ETNZ crossed the start line 3 seconds ahead of Alinghi and to windward.
“The course was basically even and we just had to play the shifts. Jon Bilger, our weather guy said both sides were even, so we just wanted to get a clean start and be on the right tack off the line,” recounted Ardern.