Emirates Team NZ still leads America's Cup World Series pointscore

by Warren Douglas on 20 Nov 2011
Emirates Team New Zealand has retained its lead in the America’s Cup World Series match racing championship, currently underway in San Diego, California.

After three regattas, Dean Barker, Winston Macfarlane, James Dagg, Ray Davies and Glenn Ashby, with 27 points, have a one-point lead over Oracle 4 (James Spithill).

Artemis on 23 points is third in the standings. Team Korea on 20 points is fourth.

The team bounced back today in its match against Artemis (Sweden) and won convincingly by 39sec. Barker won the start and controlled the race from the front, leaving the Swedes without space to move.

At the finish Barker was 39 seconds ahead. That win gave Emirates Team New Zealand third place in the San Diego match racing regatta and Artemis fourth.

Oracle 4 and the French Energy team squared off in the best-of-three match racing final, with Oracle 4 winning in two.

Coach Rod Davis blogs on Saturday’s race

One of the hardest things to do in yacht racing is to turn a bad day around.

Lose the first two races of the day in a match-racing regatta and you are very much at risk of falling into a flaming tail spin. So re-grouping is easier said than done. It is rarely one thing, but lots of little things that will turn it around.

Today, we did manage to come out race ready. The boys sailed really well. There was more intensity, they were much more in tune with wind and we got a great start from Dean Barker.

That translated into a 39sec win over Artemis and a third place overall in the San Diego match racing championships. Third place was enough for us to retain our first place at the top of the ACWS match racing standing after three regattas.

Jimmy Spithill racing Oracle 4 – the match racing winner at San Diego – is second on the overall standings with 26 points. Artemis is third on 23 and Team Korea fourth on 20.

If Grant Dalton reminded me once, he reminded me a dozen times: 'This the first time we have NOT been in the finals of a regatta.'

It was his way of drilling into me that we were under-performing. Of course you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to know we had an off-day yesterday. But in a strange way, Dalton made me smile. Imagine that. Emirates Team New Zealand has been in every final they have entered for the last six years. That is a record that will stand for a while. I just wonder how it has taken so long for us to miss out.

Tomorrow is the winner-takes-all fleet race. We will be ready.

COACH