Quotes of the Day- Louis Vuitton Cup Race Day 7

by America's Cup Media on 23 Apr 2007
Quotes of the day from teams involved in the second day of racing in the 2007 Louis Vuitton Cup:

Peter Isler, Navigator, BMW Oracle Racing on their match against Shosholoza: 'In these conditions nothing is assured. All the boats are very close in speed this time around. Every race we have sailed against them, they have shown that they tack well, and they straight line well, so it was no surprise they were ahead. But there was a quiet confidence on board that if we didn’t try anything fancy and we kept it close, something would come good and it is did come good in the end.'

Luca Devoti, Skipper, +39 Challenge on another disappointing race: 'We have a great problem with our appendages that are not allowing us to sail. In races in light air when the boat is under nine knots we are sailing sideways rather than forwards. We knew we had modifications to do and planned to do them after the fleet racing of Act 13 but we unfortunately had work on the mast. Tonight we will change the front profile of the foil.'

Paolo Cian, Helmsman, Team Shosholoza on the 'match of the day': 'BMW Oracle Racing sailed better than us, but we certainly helped them. In light airs our boat is very good and when we don’t make mistakes we can beat even the invincible teams. Now we have to start getting points because against Victory Challenge we lost some ground.'

Ray Davies, Tactician, Emirates Team New Zealand on their tactics after Friday's defeat: 'After our loss to Mascalzone in race one, we just went right back to basics and made sure we had very clear communication and nailed the simple stuff and we did that today. It is quite easy to over-complicate things with the amount of data we have coming into the boat, so we went back to basics and left Dean to clean them out in the start and cover hard from there.'

Andrew Horton, Traveller, Luna Rossa Challenge on their choice for the start: 'Against the Germans we decided to start on the left side of the course where we knew we were going to find more pressure. We knew that the start line was biased to the committee boat end by 12 degrees. For this reason they were ahead of us on the first beat.'

Jean-François Cuzon, Navigator, Areva Challenge: 'We are very happy with the result. The problem the Spanish had with their spinnaker pole made the race easier for us, but we were already on them before it broke. It was a very close race and you must never want to win too quickly – we have to be patient and grab the good chances. We still have a lot of progress to make, but we are definitely on the way up.'

David Endean, Pitman, Victory Challenge, on a few mistakes made: 'We didn’t have the greatest start we were hoping for. We missed our opportunity and were slow off the starting line - so not in the best position. We have to try and improve and keep it calm, but we have a fair bit of faith in our boat speed, and today we managed to pull ourselves out of trouble and keep extending. It’s all about minimising the mistakes'.

Marcos Iglesias, Spinnaker trimmer, Desafío Español 2007, on breaking the pole: 'We really don’t know what happened. In such light wind we were using a system that meant the pole was fixed on gybes, but it is quite normal and nothing like this has ever happened before. But we proved we are very fast - on the second beat we caught up by 50 seconds. Our only chance would have been if something had happened to Areva. But we still have another 18 races to go.'

Cameron Dunn, Helmsman, Mascalzone Latino-Capitalia Team, and his thoughts on tomorrow: 'Our match tomorrow against the Spanish will certainly be a big match as we are both quite even. After they lost against Areva today they will be analyzing in detail what didn’t work on their boat today, so tomorrow they will be very dangerous.'

Michael Hestbaek, Strategist, United Internet Team Germany, on a promising race with Luna Rossa Challenge: 'I think there was only a small window on the right that was good, and a small margin of extra wind speed. I think towards the end of the second beat we had a few small lanes, and as they were covering us we could pick when we wanted to tack. They were playing a loose cover and trying to stay out of too many tacks, so we had a few good lanes and maybe that helped us a little bit. I think they were struggling a little bit in that light seven-eight knot range. I don’t think we were faster because they had a slight edge on us, but it was not dramatic'.

Sébastien Destremau, Tactician, China Team. on their match against Victory Challenge : 'We were happy with our start in the race. We got the right side of the course and had good speed. It’s really encouraging to have seen it against Victory who have a very good boat. We know we still have a lot to go through, but we are making progress in each new match'.