Emirates Team New Zealand has won its
third straight race in the Louis Vuitton Trophy Auckland regatta.
The match against TEAMORIGIN was as good as over when the yachts rounded
the first leeward mark. Origin led into the mark with Dean Barker closing right
in and applying enormous pressure on the British team.
Dean Barker: “We forced TEAMORIGIN into a tough manoeuvre. They made one
mistake, broke the spinnaker pole and then couldn’t get their jib up. When the
pressure‘s really on in these situations it’s very hard to recover.”
Barker said: “We were able to do our rounding
without incident and, really, that was the race.”
Things started to go wrong for Origin as they began to drop the genneker.
The spinnaker pole went sideways across the deck and the crew was unable to
either drop the genneker or hoist the jib.
Emirates Team New Zealand’s crew worked flawlessly in the fresher
conditions, dropping the genneker, hoisting the jib and taking off up the
second beat as the Origin crew was working feverishly to sort out the problem.
Origin was forced to retire, handing the match to Emirates Team New Zealand. The race was sailed in 14-18 knot breeze.
Tactician Ray Davies sums up the race:
“A match against TEAM ORIGIN was always going to be a battle. We have
sailed against them a lot – and it’s never easy.
“It was hard to have a clean, clear start plan
because the wind was shifting so much. We were compromised at the pin when the
wind went further left than expected and we were a bit slow at the start.
‘Origin tacked away on the start line, sailing
straight into a right hand shift and started to make some good gains. We had to
stay in touch and wait for the opportunity.
That
came as the yachts neared the top mark.
Ray Davies: “The wind because shifty and very tricky, but good for us.
We gained a lot of ground. And were only 14sec behind as we rounded the mark
and gybed.
“We compressed the action of the run and when
we gybed on the approach to the gate, they had to follow and then make a last-minute
call on which mark to take. Then came the error that ended their race.”
Tomorrow’s
weather: fresh south-westerlies may affect racing.
Tomorrow’s
racing
Emirates Team New Zealand
v ALL4ONE
Aleph v TEAMORIGIN
Artemis v Azzurra
Mascalzone Latino v Synergy