Red Bull Youth America’s Cup - Two tough days for Objective Australia

by Simon Reffold on 3 Sep 2013 For race one yesterday, the international jury awarded Objective Australia redress, agreeing that supplied equipment had failed. That redress will be the average points of races two to six. However, the jury did not award redress for Race two.

In race four today, disaster struck again with the same gear failure causing the Code Zero to unexpectedly drop on the Objective Australia AC45.

Objective Australia and the America’s Cup Race Management team have again taken the boat out of the water to try to resolve the repeated failure of the Code Zero halyards.

The team has lodged a protest for Race four and has requested a reassessment of the redress decision on Race two. Due to the workload of the international protest committee, this cannot be heard today and will instead be heard after racing concludes tomorrow.

San Francisco put on a much better show for the second day of racing in the Red Bull Youth America’s Cup. The sun was out and the breeze was a summery 12 knots from the WSW.

The Australian’s came to the start line with plenty of enthusiasm and determination.

So too did a number of the other teams and the enthusiasm got the better of the fleet with On Course Side (OCS) penalties going to the Australians, among a number of other teams who broke the crowded start before the starter’s gun.

Objective Australia climbed back to a solid fourth by the bottom mark. Unfortunately they took a chance on the right hand mark and were alone on that side of the course with the Swiss. The left hand side had wind and tide conditions and the Australians struggled to get back to the pack.

At the end of the second run, they had clawed back distance and steadily gained up the last beat to get close enough to capitalise on some of the other team’s boat handling issues to claim sixth at the finish.
It was the second race of the day where today’s drama unfolded.

After dominating the start, Objective Australia tucked around the first mark just ahead of NZL2, forcing the kiwis to gybe away and leaving Objective Australia forging a comfortable lead. By the second mark that lead had extended and the Australians went to the favoured left side with a safe margin.