Alinghi beaten by Sweden

by Alinghi Media on 26 Jun 2006 Alinghi met the Swedish challenge, Victory, in the fifth match of flight 7.

Coming into the start box, the Swiss Defender of the America’s Cup was holding the starboard advantage. They wanted the right, but got the centre of the line in an even start with more boat speed and height over the Swedish team. Victory went right and gained an early advantage in better breeze.

The first windward mark saw Victory, coming in from the right on starboard, squeeze ahead of Alinghi, coming from the left to round 16 seconds ahead. Alinghi clawed the Swedes back downwind, covering them down the right hand side and holding the spinnaker all the way in to the gate to sneak inside Victory around the right hand mark just 6 seconds behind.

The Swedes claimed the right again, protecting it and bouncing Alinghi back over to the left up the second upwind leg. The advantage swung back and forth and the Swiss gained some ground coming in from the left at the 2nd windward mark.

They hit Victory with a luffing match out on the starboard layline, but the Swedes came out of it better off and rounded ahead maintaining their six second lead.

The second downwind leg saw Victory Challenge stretch their lead down the right hand side and cross the finish line 21 seconds ahead of the Defender.

Alinghi bounce back to beat +39 Challenge

In the second match of the day for Alinghi, the team bounced back to dominate in the pre-start against the Italian challenger +39.

The Defender led over the start line by 24 seconds and charged off to the left leading the race around the 1st windward mark by 54 seconds and drawing away further on the downwind leg to round the right hand mark with a 1 minute 23 second delta.

The Swiss team extended the lead to a comfortable 1 minute 30 second margin at the top mark and finished 2 minutes and 3 seconds ahead.

Peter Holmberg gives his summary of the Victory Challenge match:

'The right was a must have, the wind was supposed to go right but we didn’t know it was going to march that far right. So even though we had a little speed advantage, the right shift always kept him just ahead so it was a close fight. The first top mark he executed very well, small boat style and pulled it off. On the run, it was a good fight between the two teams.

Both teams sailed well but he got in just ahead at the bottom. It was a good fight up the next beat, and this time at the top mark we were able to lee bow him, but it was a weak lee bow, he was pretty much bow forward and what we tried to do was luff him and stop him and then bear off and break overlap.

But in the end he did a very nice job and we weren’t quite far enough forward to have the advantage there, so we rounded just behind him. Down the run, we kept it close just one or two jibes apart but again he did a nice job sailing his air behind us.

If there’s an upside to this, it was a good fight for us, it was the first time we’ve sailed in strong breeze in a long time and hopefully this will condition us for some of the bigger matches ahead. So the upside is that we’ve had a good battle, our crew sailed really well and a good punch might be what we need to get ready for the next ones.'

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Flight 7, Match 5
June 25, 2006
Victory Challenge v Alinghi

Starting time:	Victory Challenge	Alinghi
14:25:00	SWE 63	SUI 75
Time of issue:	Gamla Stans Yacht Sällskap	Société Nautique de Genève
15:40:03	SWE	SUI

MARK	Gain on leg	Leader	DELTA	Leader	Gain on leg
Start	-	X	00:00:00	X	-
1st Windward	00:00:16	X	00:00:16	-	-
1st Leeward	-	X	00:00:06	-	00:00:10
2nd Windward	-	X	00:00:06	-	-
Finish	00:00:15	X	00:00:21	-	-

MARK	Elapsed Time	Leg Time	Average Speed	Tacks/Gybes	WIND	Tacks/Gybes	Average Speed	Leg Time	Elapsed Time
Start	00:00:04	-	-	-	13@100	-	-	-	00:00:04
1st Windward	00:20:28	00:20:24	9.40	20	14@112	19	9.40	00:20:40	00:20:44
1st Leeward	00:33:41	00:13:13	11.20	2	14@117	4	11.40	00:13:03	00:33:47
2nd Windward	00:52:24	00:18:43	9.30	8	14@121	10	9.00	00:18:43	00:52:30
Finish	01:06:43	00:14:19	11.50	3	15@122	3	11.30	00:14:34	01:07:04

TOTAL ELAPSED TIME: 01:06:43 -WINNER: Victory Challenge -FINAL DELTA: 00:00:21

Course Information: 4 legs, length 2.60 nautical miles, initial axis 105°