Louis Vuitton Trophy Auckland - Day 3

Louis Vuitton Trophy Auckland day 3 © Ian Roman / TEAMORIGIN

Louis Vuitton Trophy Auckland day 3 © Ian Roman / TEAMORIGIN

High tempo sailing action on the Waitemata

Whitewater on the deck, whitecaps on the Waitemata and warning whistles on the onboard overload alarms characterised the high tempo sailing action today at the Louis Vuitton Trophy Auckland regatta.

After three days of competition, Emirates Team New Zealand representing the host Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron is undefeated with three wins while three teams each have a 2-1 record. They are the German/French team All4One, the Swedish team Artemis and Azzurra from Italy.

Racing moved closer to the city front today as the southwester funneled down the harbour, with puffs into the low 20-knot range as the day wore on. The weather mark was between the container wharves and the Devonport Dockyard.

Tipped as the highlight match of the day, the opening race between Emirates and Britain’s TEAMORIGIN came to a sudden end at the first leeward gate as a late tactical call on the British boat escalated into a firedrill that left spinnaker and jib draped over the foredeck and a broken spinnaker pole over the side.

Ben Ainslie at TEAMORIGIN’s wheel led at the end of the first beat after a fierce nine-tack duel up the short 1.2-mile weather leg in a puffy and shifty 13-16 knot southwesterly breeze. ETNZ was right on the British boat’s heels, just 14 seconds astern and began slowly clawing back the distance.

They came into the leeward mark with the Kiwis bow to stern with TEAMORIGIN and British hopes evaporated as Ainslie issued new last-minute orders.

“It was a bit of mess,” Ainslie said. “Things change very quickly at the bottom, but a big shift made us change the call and there wasn't enough time for the guys to react."

Barker had to sail around the hapless British boat. “It was all go coming into the bottom mark,” he said. “We have confidence in our crew work. If we get behind we’re able to keep the pressure on and keep fighting hard. Today it worked well. They made a mistake. Ignoring what happened, if they had been able to get around the mark it would have been an interesting race. We had made a big gain and it would have been some tough racing. They are sailing well.”

Race One: Emirates Team New Zealand def. TEAMORIGIN, Ret.

Ben Ainslie steering Britain’s TEAMORIGIN, fought for the right while ETNZ skipper Dean Barker went for the left. As they hit the start line, the Kiwi boat with a safe leeward forced their opponent away. However, the first beat belonged to Ainslie. Nine fast tacks later at the port layline, TEAMORIGIN enjoyed a three boat-length lead. The top mark margin was 14 seconds before Barker slowly soaked down on his opponent and picked up more ground with smoother sail handling. With ETNZ close astern and the pressure piling on, it all turned to custard on the British boat as they prepared to drop the spinnaker at the leeward gate.

Race Two: All4One def. Azzurra, 00:46

Race umpires had their work cut out with multiple incidents and protests in series of heavy-air skirmishes between Francesco Bruni steering Azzurra and Sébastien Col on the wheel of the German/French All4One. The Italian boat locked out her opponent above the line before the start but Col escaped at the last minute to get back and lead at the gun. Azzurra controlled from the right side but after All4One gained ground in a series of tacks, her tactician John Cutler forced the Italians beyond the starboard layline and above the mark. Col was able to lead back and rounded first in a flurry of protests, all green-flagged. With the wind over 20 knots and the boats pushing white water, they went down the run side by side. Cutler made the call to again take their opponents past the mark. The Italian sail handling suffered under the pressure and Azzurra trailed badly on the last two legs.

Race Three: Mascalzone Latino Audi def. ALEPH Sailing Team, 00:55

Bertrand Pacé’s French ALEPH team used their starboard tack entry to advantage in a pre-start circling duel that took both boats deep into the starting box. The start, with both boats on starboard, was close but Gavin Brady steering ML Audi Team, enjoyed an advantage for a few seconds before ALEPH edged in front. The two boats swapped the lead several times up the first half of the beat until Brady, to weather of his opponent, pushed the French boat out beyond the starboard layline. The Italian boat led into the top mark and consolidated its gains on the next three legs.

Race Four: Artemis def. Synergy Russian Sailing Team 00:41

Skipper Karol Jablonski, steering the Russian boat, engaged Terry Hutchinson at the wheel of Paul Cayard’s Artemis in a lively pre-start duel only to be penalized for gybing too close. The boats hit the line together at speed with Artemis to weather. Seconds later Hutchinson tacked and split away and initiated a tacking duel that took the Swedish boat into the lead. The Russians pushed hard and kept it close around all four legs but finished 41 seconds astern after completing their penalty turn.

Provisional leaderboard after Flight Three:

1. Emirates Team New Zealand, 3-0
=2. All4One, 2-1
=2. Artemis, 2-1
=2. Azzurra, 2-1
=5. ALEPH Sailing Team, 1-2
=5. Mascalzone Latino Audi Team, 1-2
=5. TEAMORIGIN, 1-2
8. Synergy Russian Sailing Team, 0-3

LIVE Sport Sailing 103.0 FM is featuring all-day live coverage of the Louis Vuitton Trophy. On television, during the seven days of the round robin, TVNZ is carrying nightly reports on its sports news. From March 16, during the elimination rounds, TVNZ will feature nightly half-hour reports. For the finals on 20th and 21st March there will be live coverage of the racing from noon to 4:00pm.

More information on the event website.

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Race schedule for Friday 12th March:

Race 1: ETNZ (NZL) vs All4One (FRA)
Race 2 : Aleph (FRA) vs TEAMORIGIN (GBR)
Race 3: Artemis (SWE) vs Azzurra (ITA)
Race 4: Synergy (RUS) vs Mascalzone (ITA)

TEAMORIGIN forced to retire whilst in the lead (from Leslie Greenhalgh. TEAMORIGIN)

Hotly tipped to be the race to watch of the Round Robin phase of the Louis Vuitton Trophy in Auckland – Ainslie v Barker; TEAMORIGIN v Emirates Team New Zealand, all eyes were on the Waitemata Harbour. With streaming sunshine, visibility clear as a bell, wind direction 235, wind speed 15/16 knots, the talk was of a building breeze so the aim was to get all four flights done by 15:00.

The warning signal went at 10:20 for the TEAMORIGIN vs ETNZ start. Both teams started circling in the start box almost immediately, with both talking of wanting the pin end of the line. ETNZ crossed the line slightly ahead but with TEAMORIGIN able to tack off and claim the right hand favoured side of the beat.

TEAMORIGIN quickly went bow forward in good pressure on the right of the pair and at the first cross the advantage was to the British team. Both teams tacked off to their respective sides again with TEAMORIGIN maintaining control of the right. The second time the pair converged TEAMORIGIN’s advantage had grown allowing Ainslie and co to extend, consolidate and keep control.

Approaching the windward mark TEAMORIGIN was forced to tack twice to get around wheras the New Zealanders had found a better layline and managed to gain back quite a bit of distance to round just 14 seconds behind. The pressure was back on and downwind, a wind shift meant both boats stayed on the same gybe until the bottom third of the run, ETNZ hustling to cast a wind shadow on the Brits but not quite managing to get close enough. As the pair approached the bottom gate, the pressure mounted on board TEAMORIGIN with ETNZ breathing right down their necks. A sudden but significant wind shift caused the afterguard of TEAMORIGIN to change the call on the spinnaker drop manoeuvre leaving not enough time for the foredeck crew to respond.

In a few moments of drama, the change of gybe call caused the spinnaker pole on TEAMORIGIN to drop into the water and break – impeding the headsail from being hoisted and the spinnaker from being dropped. A huge calamity for the British team forcing them to retire from the race altogether leaving the Kiwis to sail away and gain a ‘come from behind’ victory – their third win of this series.

Mike Sanderson, Team Director gave his views on the day’s action, “Obviously a frustrating result, we did lots of the hard stuff well. We had a great start, a strong first beat on the side we wanted to be on and we led at the top mark. We then chose the aggressive option at the bottom mark and did not manage to pull it off. The more training we do, the more options we open up to chose from to react to situations and sadly we crossed that line today and could not pull off that manoeuvre. The positives of leading at the first top mark in all the races we have done so far is important and may make or break some of the races later on in this event.”

Ben Ainslie, Skipper and Helmsman, added his views, “A good start and a bad end. Everything happened very quickly at the end of the bottom run, we made a mistake of trying to do something we could not pull off – for sure a lesson learnt.”

Second win for All4One (from Stephanie Nadin, All4One)

20 knots of wind today in Auckland, and still beautiful sun over the race course: ideal conditions are gathered for the eight teams taking part to the Louis Vuitton Trophy Auckland, and they offer a top level competition and really tight regattas for the great pleasure of the crews and the public.

Any team can win, and every match of the Round Robin is important for the next steps of the competition.

And what a 3rd match for ALL4ONE today against Azzurra! Great tactics, great manoeuvres from the French-German team, which remained very close on the first leg without giving anything away straight from the start. They finally managed to take over the advantage in the match when approaching the first mark upwind, that they rounded 11 seconds ahead.

ALL4ONE continued to increase their lead to end up 46 seconds ahead on the finish line.

After its first point scored on the first day against the other Italian team Mascalzone Latino, ALL4ONE confirmed its potential, with a team in good shape, very concentrated and 100% focused on the competition.

John Cutler, Tactician: "I think the key in this match was good crew work, good boat control, even when things were not going our way, everyone kept it together. We turned a difficult situation into the start to being close enough to put pressure on Azzurra up on the first leg. Good tacking, really good grinding, good driving by Sebastien Col: we just kept coming back at them, and at the end we managed to squeeze them out at the top mark, which was really good for us. We then kept control of the race, even if they were putting pressure on us.

Team is very motivated, as it is tough: we've been practicing in light conditions, waiting for the breeze. Then today we had to go straight into 15 to 23 knots of wind. It's a struggle to react, and we know it is going to be windy the next few days. So I think everybody is like "yep, we know how to sail when it's windy. We look forward to racing tomorrow and hopefully get another point." One day at a time!"

ALL4ONE will race against John Cutler's compatriots tomorrow for its 4th match in the Round Robin, that is to say Emirates Team New Zealand.

A new member joins the Mascalzone Latino family

Last night, New Zealand time, a new member became part of the Mascalzone Latino team: Mila Macky Dunn, with the important role of mascotte. The baby was born a few hours ago and she's doing very well as is Sarah, her mother.

All the "Latin Rascals" celebrated with daddy Cameron, early on that day. Cameron was onboard as afterguard in the race versus ETNZ; he went directly to the delivery room.

A new member to join the Italian team, we are always glad to welcome new elements from every nationality.