Quotes of the Day Louis Vuitton Cap Final Day 2

by ACM on 3 Jun 2007
Post race comments from Ray Davis and Adam Beashel from Emirates Team New Zealand and from Michelle Ivaldi and Joe Newton from Luna Rossa.

Ray Davies, Strategist, Emirates Team New Zealand, on the start: 'The weather call was similar to yesterday. We weren’t too worried about not keeping the dial up for long, we have been working on different times to come out of the dial ups and you can come out earlier or later. Dean did a great job of keeping his momentum going as we came out of the dial up, and then making it tough for Luna Rossa to get back to the start line. Today was awesome, one of the best we have had on board. It was all working really well - Terry was on fire, he was sailing really confidently. It felt like it was working really well at the back of the boat and the power house in the middle of the boat as well, so it was a really good day for us.'

Ray Davies, Strategist, Emirates Team New Zealand, on the Y flag incident in the pre start: 'I think the umpires made the right call - we were still turning and never really had the chance to sail straight, and it was probably why it was green flagged. We just wanted to have a go since it would have been nice to have a cheap one but we think the umpires made the right call.'

Adam Beashel, Traveller, Emirates Team New Zealand, on conditions being in their favour as the boat ahead: 'Days like today and even yesterday make it pretty difficult on the boat behind, and as we have seen the small gains were in the right up the first beat, and after that there were only very small gains to be made, and it makes it very difficult. LR did a good job down the runs to keep it close, credit to them. Days like this make it definitely a little more tense in the starting box, to come off with a good start as we saw today, we had better speed and position and turned into our margin and the crew did a great job of keeping the boat speed up.

Michele Ivaldi, Navigator, Luna Rossa Challenge on what went wrong: 'The turning point was at the start, we wanted the right a little more strongly than yesterday. ETNZ did a good job in making us pay for it, we had the right side but we paid for it with some boatspeed crossing the starting line. Going up the beat at the beginning the wind didn’t help us, and made their lead more comfortable. Half way up we had to bale out so as not to get locked in the corner. I would not say it was game over but New Zealand had a good control of things from there onwards. For sure there is a weather call in every race- we haven’t got it quite right so far but we are confident in our weather team and we trust their suggestions. I think we sailed as well as we could today against the enemy we were sailing.'

Joe Newton, Trimmer, Luna Rossa Challenge, on a punishing tacking duel in the first leg: 'For me personally its not too punishing as I just let it off and walk around to the other side! Our guys have trained a lot, and compared to our in-house training days today wasn’t a particularly hard day for them. At the end of the 22 tacks they weren’t as fresh as at the start of the race but they weren’t found wanting in any way either.'

Joe Newton, Trimmer, Luna Rossa Challenge, on whether the Kiwis had a speed edge on them: 'It’s pretty hard to tell. We think the boats are pretty even, and at a certain point they had a very good advantage, so we were trying to get some separation, get away from them and find a little shift. We were forced to tack in a few spots that we didn’t really like. With that kind of separation and with the lead they had, they did a nice job of staying in front, in phase and with a bigger lead.'

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