Louis Vuitton Trophy Auckland - Tough race for Artemis

by Paul Cayard on 14 Mar 2010 Paul Cayard reports from the Louis Vuitton Trophy Auckland.

With the day off yesterday, all teams were ready to get back into it today. We had a moderate Southwesterly breeze at 1030 this morning, which built to as much as 23 knots for our match and the last match.

Artemis had a tough race against Azzurra. We called for the right at the start and Terry got it. We worked the shifts and built a 165-meter lead at the first mark. Then it all went sideways. The pole went in the water on the windward side and the kite went in the water to leeward. That was race over for us and a gift to the Italians. That one hurt because if we had beaten them we would have been well set up to get straight into the semis with Team NZ. But it is the round robin and there will be 'knock out' races ahead and those are 'do or die'.

In the first race of the day, Team NZ beat All4One rather easily, in the second race Origin won the race but there was a collision, which may cost them half a point for damage.

In the final race of the day, Mascalzone Latino and Synergy had a good tussle, but in the end Mascalzone Latino got the win.

Racing continues tomorrow at 1000 and we, Artemis, face Mascalzone Latino in the last match of the day.

Scores:

ETNZ 4 wins
Azzurra 3 wins
Artemis, All4One, Mascalzone Latino, Origin with 2 wins
Aleph and Synergy with 0.
Aleph had a one point deduction for a collision today with Origin. Aleph is protesting the decision with the jury tonight so there may still be an adjustment to either Aleph's points or Origin's points.

For complete results and live streaming of the racing plus other features go to www.louisvuittontrophy.com or http://artemisracing.com/pages/lvtv