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I don’t think it was with any great regret that the management of BMW Oracle Racing accepted Chris Dickson’s resignation yesterday.
It would have been a very uncomfortable three months for everyone concerned, if the former CEO, skipper and helmsman had stayed the full course of his contract.
The question that we wanted answered at the press conference yesterday in the team’s plush cinema was whether they would ever again place that much power in the hands of one man.
Kiwi journo Peter Montgomery asked Laurent Esquier: “In the 21st century, is it too much for one man now to whistle, dance and do a jig on a five-cent piece all at the same time? Can one man do everything? Should you have a separate CEO, a separate skipper?”
The answer, which was a little surprising considering what had just happened in the Semi Finals, seemed to be: “Why not?”. When Paul Cayard tried to do this with Il Moro di Venezia in 1992, he said ‘never again’. Peter Gilmour came to the same conclusion a few years later. It might have worked for Dennis Conner a few decades ago, but not in the modern era.
Having the CEO make the decision about whether or not the helmsman (ie himself) was up to the role of steering the boat, was what ultimately torpedoed BMW Oracle. Surely they wouldn’t make the same mistake again? Would they?
Chris Dickson fronted up to answer the media’s questions this evening. He congratulated Luna Rossa and paid tribute to his own team BMW Oracle Racing.
“We’ve had a very strong team with a huge amount of depth in the sailing team, in every area. I look back on this week, on Round Robins 1 and 2, we had no glaring weaknesses. We were outclassed by Luna Rossa in a number of areas this week. If there was something glaringly obvious we’d have done something about it.”
He also thanked Sten Mohr for stepping up to the helmsman’s job today, a job which he said was a thankless task for the Dane. “We call it a ‘hospital pass’ in rugby, when the ball is coming your way but you know you’re going to get hammered.”
So why offload the job to Mohr? It turns out it wasn’t Dickson’s choice. “The decision to take me off the boat today was Larry’s decision and that was his call to make, he’s the owner. “Nobody did a bad job on our team. Our friends across the fence, at Luna Rossa, did a much better job.” Asked what advice Dickson would have the Italian finalists, Dickson replied with a smile: “I don’t think they need a lot of advice, and they certainly don’t need it from me.”
So, what future for BMW Oracle and what future for Chris Dickson? “The future for the team is that Larry is committed to having the team continue. That was decided some time ago. The future for myself is I signed up for this campaign and we’ve got a bit of wrapping up to do for a few weeks, then I’ll be quietly heading back to New Zealand and taking my family to Disneyland on the way home, probably. And life goes on.”
Click here to hear more of Dickson's valedictory press conference
Chris Dickson is off the boat today. Gavin Brady has taken over as skipper, with B boat helmsman Sten Mohr stepping up to the wheel. Larry Ellison is on board, to see his team racing for the last time... or to contribute to the beginning of a remarkable comeback for BMW Oracle Racing.
The last time Sten Mohr (pictured) steered USA 98 was in that disastrous race against China Team. If the American headstay foil hadn't blown up that day, the Americans wouldn't be in this predicament now. They'd have won the Round Robin and would have enjoyed the pick of their opponent in the Semi Finals.
But that's all water under the bridge. This is Mohr's big chance and it's going to be fascinating to see how he stands up to a James Spithill that's firing on all cylinders. The Danish match racing specialist joined the team last year as a test driver and sparring partner for Dickson. He used to sail with Victory Challenge.
A statement from BMW Oracle says: "The team has always built the sailing squad on the basis that there are two people for every position on the boat and it was felt necessary to bring some fresh blood in off the bench."
Chris Dickson said: "We brought our best package into the Semi Finals, but we have not achieved the results we were hoping for, so in my capacity as CEO I fully support any moves that will give us a choice to win." An interesting choice of words, "fully support" implying that Dickson was pushed rather than volunteered to step away.
Chris Dickson reputedly has the tattoo of a scorpion on his shoulder. The scorpion is fabled as a creature that commits suicide by stinging itself to death when surrounded by fire.
Today Dickson was trapped by a bush fire of young Aussie James Spithill’s making, as Luna Rossa chased USA 98 into ‘coffin corner’, the left-hand boundary of the start box from which boats rarely escape without penalty.
As Spithill harried USA 98 past the pin-end start mark and into the ‘zone of no return’, in a bid of desperation Dickson gybed around and tried to get across Luna Rossa bearing down on him on starboard gybe.
The aggressive young Aussie could have whacked USA 98 amidships, and the umpires judged it as a red flag penalty. BMW Oracle was adjudged to have gained advantage from the manoeuvre, and so the Americans were obliged to take their 270 turn immediately.
If the first penalty was born of desperation, the second penalty situation seemed born of frustration. Just seconds after the first incident, as both boats crossed the line on port tack with ITA 94 to windward, Dickson jerked the wheel to leeward, resulting in USA 98’s stern scoop swinging up to windward and thwacking into the side of ITA 94.
Both teams waved their Y flags frantically, James Spithill turning around with two fingers held aloft to the umpires (palm facing OUT, before you ask), demanding two penalties. Spithill got his wish and Dickson got his second penalty.
It was game over from there. Four boatlengths ahead, Luna Rossa tactician Torben Grael didn’t throw any of his 2.7km splits into the equation but played a much tighter covering game, to the relief of fluttering Italian hearts. The added bonus for the Italians is that they seem to have negated the Americans’ downwind speed advantage.
So where to go for BMW Oracle from here? One more defeat and the fires will consume BMW Oracle. However, another trait of the scorpion is that you trap it under a glass, it goes completely still, pretending to be dead when really it is waiting for its moment of escape – and revenge. Does Dickson have one last sting in his tail for Spithill?
A month or so ago, we media types were talking about how there was not one - but two places up for grabs in the Semi Finals, such was the perceived weakness of Luna Rossa at the time. Word on the street was that the Italians were struggling in pre-Act 13 training against the likes of Areva Challenge. The question was which of the 2nd tier teams would be joining the dead certs – BMW Oracle and New Zealand – as the other two teams in the Semis.
How wrong could we be? Now 3-1 up against BMW Oracle after another intriguing match in steady moderate breezes, they appear to be the equal of Americans in almost every department. Even the superior downwind speed of USA 98 was not in evidence today, with Dickson throwing everything but the kitchen sink at James Spithill down the final run but failing to unsettle the Italians who held their nerve for a 23-second victory.
It’s difficult to criticise a team that has just won, especially when the team tactician has five Olympic medals hanging around his neck, but why did Torben Grael put a small but comfortable lead at risk up the final beat by allowing yet another of these massive splits to develop?
We’ve seen some big separation between these two teams over the past week, but nothing like the 2.7 kilometre split that we saw today, with Grael going right and Gavin Brady taking the left. When they came back together at the middle of the top of the course, the Italians had gained one, maybe two boatlengths on the Americans. All that risk for that?
Then again, the Italians did round the final mark sufficiently far ahead not to be overly troubled by BMW Oracle down the last run, and the Luna Rossa gang looked more than a little happy when they crossed the finish line. In fact, maybe a little too happy. As Tom Ehman comments in his BMW Oracle blog: “At dock-in just now, the Luna Rossa fans next door worked a bit too much at being boisterous and exhuberant. I think that gives us all more motivation to go after them even harder tomorrow. No doubt we will come out swinging.” You’re doing well, Luna Rossa, but you haven’t won it yet. The Italians need to keep a bottle on their emotions for a few days longer.
Meanwhile, it was back to business as usual for Dean Barker and the Kiwis, after a solid win against the Spanish. Actually it was a pretty special pre-start by Barker as he pulled a ‘steel balls’ move on Karol Jablonski to win the right-hand side of the box, which he subsequently used to effect a ‘push’ on the Spanish boat, upsetting and slowing his opponent’s final approach to the line.
It was job done for Barker at that point, as strategist Ray Davies explained: “The emphasis was on being first off the start line and we put a little pressure on Dean to pull one out of the bag, and he did for us today. Certainly that half a boatlength lead was where the race was controlled from. We were able to set up to the left of the Spanish and there was never any right-hand shift they could come back on.”
What another fantastic day’s racing off Valencia. We probably wouldn’t have thought so, were it not for the fact that it was the perceived underdogs in both matches who led from start to finish. But when you’ve got Luna Rossa leading BMW Oracle and Desafio leading the Kiwis, you’re just waiting for someone’s wheels to fall off and for the lead to change.
Well, all credit to the Italians and Spanish, as they held the overdogs (is that the opposite of underdogs?) at bay. Perhaps we’re going to have to revise our perceptions of underdogs and overdogs. The fact is, BMW Oracle haven’t led Luna Rossa round any mark of any of the three matches thus far in the Semi Finals. That is an incredible statistic, and a very worrying one for the American team.
James Spithill is pouring on the aggression in the pre-start and is getting the better of Chris Dickson. Luna Rossa have won every start and BMW Oracle have been forced to fall back on searing downwind pace to haul them back into the game. It can’t help that Dickson is without his No.1 choice bowman, Brad Webb, who had to pull out a couple of days ago for some knee surgery. No doubt Kazuhiko Sofuku is every bit as able a bowman but he’s not had the benefit of honing his skills and communication with Dickson and the rest of the crew during the past few weeks of competition.
Having said that, Dickson lost today’s pre-start battle to Spithill long before the start gun fired. After being one of the most consistent pre-starters of the Round Robins, Dickson just doesn’t seem to be able to match the finesse of the young Australian. Of course as any good helmsman should, Spithill pays credit to the guys in front of him. “I’m feeling pretty comfortable just because I’ve got confidence in the guys - it feels like we have got a real strong team and the guys are really digging it in on the handles.
“When you’ve got that kind of belief it gives you that extra boost in yourself. The guys have pretty much said to me ‘put the boat wherever you need to and the sails will be there’ and they have delivered. So it’s full credit to those guys.”
Spithill probably has a brief to inflict as much damage on the opposition as possible in the pre-start, as does Karol Jablonski for the Spanish. When you’re the perceived underdog, it’s the best chance you have of winning a match race.
Look how dangerous Jablonski was against the Kiwis today, sticking a penalty on Barker. It’s what the Spanish thought they needed to beat the Kiwis, although actually they didn’t need it, because they led NZL 92 all the way round the track, a mighty confidence boost for a team that had never beaten in the Kiwis in any of their nine previous outings.
Both the Americans and the Spanish made a mode change to their boats last night. Of course, no one ever says what they’ve done or why, but when Spithill was asked his opinion on what might have changed on USA 98, he replied: “The rudder. That would be my guess.” A real guess? Or a little psychological dig at Dickson’s starting perhaps?
While there was no perceptible difference to the speed of USA 98, ESP 97 appeared finally to be able to match NZL 92 for pace upwind, an area where the Spanish had seemed to be a click off the pace. From being very much the fourth of the Semi Finallists, Spain is improving by the day and is not going to be the pushover that New Zealand fans might have hoped for.
At last, after a wobbly start, all is coming good in Valencia. The sun is shining, the wind is blowing, we’re up to date with the schedule, and every one of the four dogs is having its day. Keep the good times rolling.
A week ago Gavin Brady voiced the confidence that BMW Oracle Racing have in their boat USA 98. “I’ve personally never been on a boat where we feel we’re the only people that could screw it up for 98.”
The first two matches of the Semi Finals seem to bear that out, as Chris Dickson turned on the afterburners down the first run to reduce a whopping 58-second deficit at the windward mark to just 20 seconds by the leeward gate.
If the Americans ever manage to get comfortably in front, it’s hard to see Luna Rossa being able to match the awesome pace of USA 98.
But credit where credit is due, because both the Luna Rossa navigator Michele Ivaldi and his USA counterpart Peter Isler said it was also about picking good lanes downwind. And BMW Oracle found the better lanes of breeze today, as well as being faster.
“It is not all boat speed,” said Isler. “We are happy with USA 98 all around the course, the oscillations and puffs gave more opportunity for the trailing boat to look super fast than on a typical sea breeze day where it is more persistent. Gavin (Brady) and Eric (Doyle) did a great job calling the wind, it was good tactics on board and good sail trim. Boat speed is in play, but we have been playing the runs well.”
Overall, both afterguards sailed a tighter match today compared with yesterday’s freestyling all over the race course. However, the onshore conditions were much more predictable than yesterday so the passing lanes were fewer too. The first part of the final beat saw some close tacking until… both boats broke off from battle to go off chasing better breeze on their side of the course. Back to weather gambling again!
At one point the lateral separation across the course was more than 1.5km, with USA on the left, Italy on the right. What was amazing was that when they converged again at the top of the course, they were absolutely neck and neck, to the point where Dickson could initiate a luffing match.
James Spithill held his nerve to round the final mark 14 seconds ahead, but four or five seconds of that slender advantage were swallowed up by the difference in quality of spinnaker hoists. As usual it was the American boat that looked slicker.
Dickson was now able to put all sorts of pressure on the Italians, and when Grael opted to swap sides with USA 98 to claim the tactical power of the right, you got the sense that this was the Brazilian’s final weapon in his ever-depleting armoury.
Boat for boat, and manoeuvre for manoeuvre, the BMW Oracle team is just too strong for Luna Rossa – with the exception of the pre-start where first blood definitely went to Spithill. By far the stronger finishers, however, are the Americans, and they won by 13 seconds today.
Asked why BMW Oracle seem to make it so hard on themselves, why they’re always starting on the back foot, Isler laughed in reply: “It’s more fun and more spectacular! It is certainly harder on the heart, but with a great crew and boat, coming back is all part of the scene. Sometimes you are not going to come off the line first or get the first shifts so you have to have that ability if you want to win the Cup.”
It’s certainly highly entertaining stuff, and Dickson and Co warrant an Oscar nomination for the cliffhanger scripts they’ve been writing these past two days. Long may it continue. While the Americans are busy making Hollywood movies, the Kiwis are writing the text book on how to match race. And text books are very worthy but very boring, which is why I haven’t written about them today. I’m sure that will suit Dean Barker and his team just fine. They’d rather do boring than nailbiting any day.
Two more contrasting styles in match racing you could not have hoped to see today. With the wind blowing off the city for the opening matches of the Louis Vuitton Cup Semi Finals, the fluky, shifty conditions made it a tough call as to whether afterguards should be chasing the best breeze or defending position on the race course.
Luna Rossa and BMW Oracle Racing seemed to favour the former – chasing the breeze at the expense of tactical positioning – while Emirates Team New Zealand never allowed Desafio Espanol room to breathe. The Kiwis were all over the Spanish like a rash, and while it never meant Dean Barker could put any sort of comfortable distance between him and Karol Jablonski, at least it meant he won the race.
The Italians and Americans, on the other hand, were playing a much faster and looser game, rolling the dice for a six and hoping for the best. Luna Rossa tactician Torben Grael is notorious for going for the big gamble, and quite often makes it pay.
When you’re the perceived underdog, as Luna Rossa are considered to be, it makes even more sense to break away from your opponent. The more separation you can create from your superior rival, the less significant any differences between boatspeed and boathandling become.
Which begs the question why the BMW Oracle afterguard were playing the same game of rolling for a six. USA 98 is considered to be one of the fastest – if not the fastest – boat among the challengers, and no one can match the slick crew work of the BMW Oracle crew.
So, why didn’t they do as the Kiwis did, and keep it tight on their opposition? Peter Isler commented at the press conference after racing: “The one thing that was clear was it was a very shifty day, and you had to try to connect the dots with the puffs. It looked like a day where you had to throw away some of your classic match racing tactics and keep a more open mind.”
The American team put their faith in the right, and it didn’t pay off, as they trailed Italy by 52 seconds at the top mark, an immense delta at this level. However, when Torben Grael took Luna Rossa back to the centre of the track downwind, it opened the door for USA 98 to charge down the right in a big puff of breeze, and suddenly that 400 metre deficit was down to zero again.
We were back into a full-on match race as Dickson tried to bully James Spithill out of his approach to the left-hand gate, but the Italians showed some good high-pressure boathandling to hold their nerve and protect the left-hand exit while Dickson made a dive for the right. At this point tactician Gavin Brady could have taken the fight back to the Italians with an early tack, but instead the Americans plugged on right and the Italians went left again. Within a matter of minutes the Italians had extended the gain line to 400 metres, and this time they held the lead comfortably to the finish.
Isler said the crucial moment came at the leeward gate when the Italians successfully defended the favoured left-hand mark. “That engineered a split that you don’t want to happen on a day like today. Had we gone back over immediately we’d have been four boatlengths behind. How would it have played out then? A bit more of a dogfight maybe?” Yes, it probably would have been, and with the great benefit of hindsight, BMW Oracle would have stood a much better chance of beating Luna Rossa.
The pressure must be beginning to tell on the American camp. After all, this is not a one-off. BMW Oracle could have played a tighter match to the Kiwis last Wednesday in the final decisive match of the Round Robins. By opting for a big split they lost out to Emirates Team New Zealand then, and they have done it again today against Italy.
In shifty conditions it’s a tough call knowing how to juggle priorities between best breeze and best tactical position. However, for a team that's so well equipped for close quarters combat, it’s surprising to see BMW Oracle try to fight their battles with inaccurate long-range weapons rather than getting stuck in to some hand-to-hand fighting. It will be interesting to see if Dickson, Brady and Isler decide to fix bayonets next time.
Did you know Dean Barker and Chris Dickson both hail from the same school in Auckland? Neither did I, until today when I received a timely press release from the Westlake Boys High School. Actually Desafio tactician John Cutler is also from Westlake, but he’s standing on the naughty chair after his Kiwi salute to Vasco Vascotto a few days ago.
Anyway, it was Dean Barker’s turn to be headboy today, with Dickson given litter-picking duty in the playground. Dickson had the better of the pre-start and used his advantage to claim the left.
The Kiwis rolled off the line with USA 98, but after a couple of tacks, when Emirates broke way to the right BMW Oracle didn’t follow and carried on ploughing a lonely furrow to the left. By the time NZL 92 flopped back onto starboard, the lateral separation was massive.
At this stage the gain line gave a three boatlength lead to the Americans, but as a right-hand shift came in, the dial started spinning rapidly in Kiwi favour, and two minutes later they were almost 250 metres ahead. It was game, set and match from there.
The pre-race favourites lost it so badly that conspiracy theories are flying around Valencia. But it was just a bad weather call. The Americans wanted the left, won the left, and lost from the left. Which means that the Kiwis got to choose Spain for the Semis, while BMW Oracle faces a tougher challenge in Luna Rossa.
Not only will the Americans be ruing missed opportunities in today's match, but they will also regret that headsail foil breakdown against China Team all those days ago at the beginning of RR2. Looking at how sloppy the Spanish were today, winning the Round Robin is a definite ticket through to the LV Finals for ETNZ, although we shouldn’t read too much into the home team performance.
After a big night out on the town celebrating yesterday’s passage to the Semi Finals, the Spanish sailors’ complexions were matching their sickly green boat this afternoon. We can expect better in the Semi Finals, but it’s hard to see Spain causing much trouble for New Zealand.
What they said in the press conference:
Dean Barker, Skipper, Emirates Team New Zealand, on the dangers of choosing:
“It’s always tough in any match racing event when you have the opportunity to choose, because the top four teams are there because they’re fast. You choose your poison, and we’ve made the choice to race Spain.”
Chris Dickson, Skipper, BMW ORACLE Racing, on whether winning the Round Robins was worth fighting for:
“I think it’s certainly worth fighting for. That’s why Emirates Team New Zealand were out there, and that’s why we were out there. The bad news is we lost a boat race, the bad news is we don’t get to choose our poison. The good news is we don’t have to choose.”
Francesco de Angelis, Skipper, Luna Rossa, on the value of proper racing compared with in-house racing:
“With due respect to my team mates, when you race another team it is more valid, because you have things at stake. When you race your own team, if you make a mistake you can restart the exercise. When you race a team officially, you have one chance and that’s it. It’s a totally different game, and I’m sure that in racing you always learn and grow. I am not surprised at the set-up for these Semi Finals, and I’m sure that the guy who comes out of this will be a stronger competitor.”
Karol Jablonski, Skipper, Desafio Espanol 2007, on being chosen by New Zealand:
“There is no easy choice, and those teams are very strong, sometimes you choose the team that you are comfortable against but then you lose against them. Dean made the right choice. It gives us the opportunity to pay them back, so I thank you now for choosing us. It’s great for us to race New Zealand. We are really looking forward to race.”
A feeling of invincibility is growing around USA 98. BMW Oracle seem very comfortable with their new boat, far more so than they ever were with USA 87. One of the lynchpins of the Americans’ enormous design team, the Argentinean maverick Juan Kouyoumdjian, says he’s very happy with the USA 98’s performance compared with the Kiwis’ boats for example.
Here’s a comment about NZL 92 from an interview with Juan K on Kimball Livingston’s blog. “At the risk of being wrong - we haven't sailed against them enough to really know - I'd say the boat lacks a touch of speed. That team can compensate with rigs, sails, sailing talent, but if you give that boat to any of the second-tier teams, you won't see them going any faster."
Tactician Gavin Brady is pretty impressed too: “What I like about 98 is the effort the builders put in to building it, she’s built down to the lightest tolerances ever seen, which maximises our stability.”
Brady believes this is the best boat he’s ever sailed on. “The first thing you do is you jump on a boat and work on minimising your weaknesses. It might have a really good fast mode or really high mode, but you don’t often get both. The nice thing with 98 is she seems to have both.
“My feeling is, if I was racing 98, and asked myself how I’d exploit her, well, she’s quite a formidable boat – she goes high, she goes low, she accelerates, she doesn’t stall. She’s an all-round nice boat. I’ve never seen it all come together before so nicely, the whole package, it’s four years of a lot of money, a lot of development, good people.”
The way Brady puts it, the boat is almost an extension of skipper Chris Dickson. Remember, Brady walked away from the team a couple of years ago because Dickson moved him off the wheel. Now that Brady’s back, he seems more than happy to operate in the tactician’s role while Dickson continues to steer.
“USA 98 has options, has modes, and one of the biggest features is Chris Dickson drives the boat extremely well. He’s very dialled in right now. I don’t think anyone is steering their boat as fast as Chris.
“He’s very confident with the boat. 98 is one thing, but having Chris Dickson drive it is the number one factor, it’s that package. He has a really good feel for the load on the rudder, that relationship is quite special. I’ve personally never been on a boat where we feel, we’re the only people that could screw it up for 98.”
Click here to listen to the whole MP3 interview with Brady in its entirety. It’s about 8 minutes.
So, $102,600 to ride as 18th man on the back of BMW Oracle. That's what the Ebay bid fetched, so well done to BMW Oracle, good luck to the 18th man (or lady perhaps), and congratulations to the Susan Komen breast cancer charity which benefits from the proceeds.
It seems terribly unfair that on the very day they do this good deed that BMW Oracle should suffer such a calamitous breakdown as they did against China Team. But maybe God doesn't leave good feedback until He's seen the PayPal transaction has come through safely...
Oh dear, I'm going straight to hell for that one!
Today’s line-up looked pretty ho-hum, and with the stronger breeze it seemed like everything would run to form. How wrong can you be! BMW Oracle v China Team should have been the dullest of matches, but no sooner had former BMW Oracle bowman Geordie Shaver made the comment on America’s Cup Radio that this was still a pressure race for the B-boat crew (because that is who was sailing USA 98 today), than the jib blew out of the headstay foil.
Poor old Sten Mohr and the rest of the B-boaters – sent out to do a routine bit of paperwork at the office – and then the window bursts open and all the paperwork goes blowing off down the street. Imagine going back to the BMW Oracle base and having to tell the bosses what happened on their day off!
Fortunately for the sailing crew, Ian Burns, head of the design team, took it on the chin. “It was disappointing. We couldn’t get round intact so they [China Team] deserve the two points - these things happen in sailing, it’s part of the territory really. We were surprised and disappointed to see that failure, but I think it’s a sign of cutting it too close for comfort, and we will be reviewing that and a few other things to make sure that we are good enough to go the whole way. Maybe the compensation is that losing a couple of points to China Team is not as expensive as losing them to some of the other competitors out there.”
Areva Challenge sailed a blinder of a day, taking both of their races – first against Mascalzone Latino which the French won with a sucker punch of a luffing match on the first run. And then they pounced on +39 Challenge down the final run of a thrilling showdown between these teams that promise so much, but don’t quite have the finesse to match the top teams.
It was a day of so near and yet so far for Iain Percy and the +39 gang. To lose by just one second to Desafio Espanol in their first match after dominating the Spanish in the pre-start and leading for all but the final hundred metres, only to repeat the whole painful process against Areva. Hardly surprising, though, considering the severe lack of practice and organisation this team has endured for the past two years.
The team can sail smart and fast when unbothered by the other boat, but in close quarters contests the boathandling just wasn’t sufficiently tight. What Areva and +39 Challenge have both proven today, however, is that they are no pushovers and both teams must be treated with respect.
Possibly two of the most eagerly anticipated matches of the day, Victory v Luna Rossa and Mascalzone v New Zealand, proved to be among the least exciting. Not that they were dull, but the two middle-order teams had an opportunity to prove their pedigree as Semi Finals contenders, and neither managed to do so.
With Desafio’s skin-of-the-teeth win from +39 Challenge, the Spanish hold a useful three point lead over their rivals for the fourth spot in the Semis. That one second victory today could be the moment that Spain ensured its survival beyond the end of the Round Robin phase, little more than a week from now.
A fantastic day’s racing in Valencia to conclude a Round Robin that at one time seemed like it would never end. So what did we learn from today? Well, for starters, that none of the helmsmen in the leading teams are infallible.
It’s easy to overlook the fact that Chris Dickson, with all the other responsibilities he faces as head of BMW Oracle Racing, remains one of the best starters in the business. He has looked very consistent in the pre-starts. In the big decider match to determine who would win Round Robin One, he had Dean Barker and the Kiwis wrapped up like a kipper. Dickson saw a moment to close the Kiwis out of the start and put BMW Oracle at a massive early advantage.
However, Dickson got greedy and in his eagerness to post a ‘kill’, lost control of the situation and let Barker off the hook as NZL 92 sailed off to an unexpected early lead. However, the fact that the Kiwis ended up winning the start shouldn’t distract from the fact that in both pre-starts today the New Zealand boat looked in all sorts of trouble.
Magnus Holmberg can take credit for winning the pre-start against Barker in the match earlier this afternoon, although it was another case of the Kiwis wriggling out of trouble and finding better breeze on the right. Barker has been taking a lot of flak in some corners of the media for his inconsistent starting performances and rightly so, on the strength of what we saw today.
James Spithill, helmsman of Luna Rossa, is seen by some as the Russell Coutts of the next generation. Widely acknowledged as one of the most aggressive but controlled match racers in the game, we didn’t see the best of the young Aussie in the Italian team’s starts against Mascalzone Latino and Desafio Espanol – even if Luna Rossa ended up as the only team to win both matches today. Again, when analysing starting performance, Luna Rossa's results flatter to deceive.
Arguably the star of the pre-starts has been Jes Gram Hansen, whose roughing up of Luna Rossa today put Mascalzone Latino at a significant advantage on the first beat. It was unfortunate that Mascalzone could not hold on to that lead until the end of the race, but that is no reflection on the up-and-coming Dane’s starting ability.
It seemed that in today’s fickle and unpredictable conditions, winning or losing the start had little bearing on the eventual outcome of the race. There were numerous passing opportunities, and so it was a big day for the windspotters at the top of the rigs, sniffing out the best puffs of breeze wafting down the track. Desafio’s second helmsman, Jesper Radich, made the comment during his guest spot on America’s Cup Radio today that 90% of teams who lead round the first mark go on to win the match. But in these unstable conditions, raw statistics appear to count for little.
The unsteady breezes have certainly added to the excitement of Round Robin One, but have made it less easy to discern any real boatspeed differences between the top teams. Desafio Espanol won a drag race off the start line with BMW Oracle and beat the American boat fair and square, so there appears little wrong with the Spanish package. The Italian teams on the other hand seem more reliant on some decent breeze to get their boats up to race-winning pace.
Top Italian team Luna Rossa hasn’t looked entirely convincing and yet at the end of this intriguing first phase they lie second in the rankings. So, not so bad after all, perhaps? Along with Luna Rossa, the Spanish are the team in the ascendant. Confidence will be blooming, while in the New Zealand camp there will be a feeling that things just aren’t clicking. Before this season, most pundits would have put the Kiwis just ahead of BMW Oracle as the favourite to race Alinghi later this summer. After Round Robin One, however, the Challenger of Record is looking the most likely to front up against the Swiss.
The big teams are all facing a relatively straightforward start to Round Robin Two, with the exception of Emirates Team New Zealand’s draw against Mascalzone Latino, who claimed a Kiwi scalp in Round Robin One. It will be vital for Kiwi confidence to get the better of Jes Gram Hansen and the Latin Rascals at the start. If not, then the pressure will only continue to build on the New Zealanders.
A lovely quote from BMW Oracle navigator Peter Isler this evening: "That sort of mojo is beautiful when you can earn it or talk yourself into it that you have it. There is a little bit of that going around. And confidence breeds confidence. To keep winning and keep doing well and not taking chances and sailing conservative races, taking a chance only once in a while when it is necessary, and as long as we are fast - that will end up putting points on the scoreboard."
That sums up an excellent regatta so far for Chris Dickson and the Americans, who have gone unbeaten while every other team has dropped two or more matches. A good day for Luna Rossa too, as James Spithill confirmed his reputation as one of the smartest match racers on the racing scene, getting the better of Dean Barker in the pre-start and upsetting the form book to beat the Kiwis.
Desafio Espanol are earning a lot of respect for their performances and seem to be coming on strong while the wheels have been falling off the Shosholoza wagon of late. Ken Venn, mid bow on the South African boat admitted afterwards: "Unfortunately we ripped two spinnakers because of the way our rig is set up. It has a few sharp edges that need to be softened tonight."
If the kite-ripping problem really is as easily solved as that, then it begs the question why this hasn't been addressed before. The South Africans are getting so much of the difficult stuff right, it would be a great shame if they don't progress to the Semi Finals through such basic oversights on the boat maintenance.
After Alinghi's weather briefing yesterday morning, the breeze at last seems to be coming good in Valencia, the Lord be praised. With the exception of Wednesday's racing - which pretty much ran to the bookies' form - every day has some seen some upsets. Having said that, when you look at the overall standings now, things are pretty much running to expected form.
One of the slight surprises is just how dominant BMW Oracle are proving. The Kiwis have yet to impress in the way that Kiwis usually do, while Luna Rossa seems to need some breeze for their square-shaped Star boat to pick up her skirts and get going. Perhaps they have geared ITA 94 to the stronger breezes that are expected to come in later in the series, but as far as getting through to the Semi Finals, they are by no means assured of that. Desafio and Mascalzone in particular are looking like strong contenders for the Semis, so optimising your boat for later in the regatta - if indeed that is what Luna Rossa have done - is a risky strategy.
Tomorrow's line-up looks mouthwateringly good, with plenty of close matches in store. And hopefully more upsets.
Well, when the racing happens in Valencia, it's actually pretty good! For a while it looked like we were about to witness an upset of even greater proportions than Mascalzone's scalping of the Kiwis two days ago. When Shosholoza pulled ahead of BMW Oracle on the first lap of their match today, every neutral observer - and quite a few besides - were willing the South Africans to beat the Americans.
However, when the Shosholoza crew fluffed their spinnaker drop at the leeward gate, Chris Dickson's team was ready to pounce and they sailed in typically controlled and ruthless fashion to overhaul the underdogs. That's tactician Gavin Brady doing all the concentrating in the photo above, with navigator Peter Isler to his left and the iceman Dicko on the wheel.
At least in the Desafio v Areva match the underdog French team managed to hold on to their lead and stick one on the Spanish team who have such high hopes of making the Louis Vuitton Semi-Finals.
For all the fact that we've only had two days' racing in a seven days of competition, this first week says so much about the Swiss management of the Cup, both good and bad. Perhaps someone should have listened more carefully to Russell Coutts when he suggested Cascais on Portugal's Atlantic seaboard would be the better sailing venue. Or maybe we've just been really unlucky with the breeze.
Valencia is known (by some) as the Fremantle of the Mediterranean, but the supposedly reliable thermal effect has been in short supply to date. Chief race officer Peter 'Luigi' Reggio expects the situation to improve the further we get into the summer, when the mountains further inland can be expected to heat up properly and start to suck in a decent sea breeze. But that doesn't really start happening until late June when the event is all but over. That might be fine for the America's Cup but it's not much fun for the challengers in the LV Cup.
You could surmise that this was all part of Alinghi's cunning plan, to have the challengers wallowing around in no wind for two months before the Cup, but that would be a conspiracy theory too far! After all, Alinghi's second boat, SUI-100, has barely had time to get wet, let alone test the 'can they, can't they' canting keel.
Looking on the bright side, at least these light breezes are producing some real upsets in the competition. The 'Big Four' are not looking nearly as impregnable as they have in seasons past. And for that, Alinghi and ACM deserve real credit for introducing the Louis Vuitton Acts. Would Shosholoza have led BMW Oracle so confidently in the race today, even if they didn't end up winning? Would Mascalzone have trounced the Kiwis last Friday if we hadn't had the 13 Act regattas? I don't think so.
The naysayers (largely from the other side of the pond who still think the America's Cup was named after their great nation, and hanker for a return to those halcyon days in Newport RI) have long gone silent over this particular criticism of ACM. Whatever you think of the choice of Valencia as a reliable sailing venue, you can't fault the Acts and the implementation of the Version 5 design rule. Both have conspired to produce what is set to be a tighter challenger series than we have ever witnessed before. That's bad news for the Kiwis, but it's great for us sailing fans.
Valencia has been described as the 'Fremantle of the Mediterranean', famed for its reliable sea breezes. Yes, well, enough of that.
Three days of no racing is not the ideal start to the competition, except perhaps for +39 Challenge, who have had three more days to sellotape their Version 5 rig back together. Kind though it was for Alinghi to lend its Version 4 rig, the very mast that won the 2003 Cup in Auckland 5-Nil, apparently in anything more than 10 or 12 knots of breeze and the extra loads caused by these new-generation square-headed mainsails makes the stick look distinctly wobbly. Talk is that Iain Percy's shore crew could have the Version 5 rig back together by tomorrow (Thursday).
So at least some good has come of this no-wind situation. It has also meant that Port America's Cup has precious little to talk about, so the chat at the Estrella Damm bar has been about those dirty, rotten scoundrels at Alinghi who have supposedly developed their non-canting keel. Yacht design makes my head spin, so if you want to try and understand more about this, I suggest you head over to Matt Sheahan's explanation at Yachting-World.com.
Chief measurer Ken McAlpine is meant to be doing some talking tomorrow, so perhaps he'll shed some light on the subject. Meanwhile Alinghi will be having a right good laugh. No wind on the race course, and a lot of wind about their 'canting' keel. Classic smoke & mirrors stuff.
They say that the measure of a good team is not by how much it wins, but how well it copes when things start going wrong. Well, on the fourth day of Louis Vuitton Act 13 in the America's Cup, we saw both sides of Alinghi yesterday - dominant from start to finish in the first race, and then somewhat error-prone in the second race but still able to salvage a third place despite a poor start and a penalty turn later in the race.
The signs are ominous for the challengers, as Alinghi looks the match of anything the other teams can throw at them. BMW Oracle's crew work has looked impeccable up until recently, with the broken spinnaker pole an understandable error, and a big wave washing across the bow yesterday causing the headsail to be ripped out of its feeder and damaging the headsail foil. Sailing upwind without a jib is never a good look, but all the more surprising for the fact that it was the usually very slick Americans who found themselves in this position.
Tactician Gavin Brady was philosophical about the mishap. "That is one of the things that can happen in fleet racing, where you get a lot of boats coming into the mark at the same time. It generates waves coming in from all different directions. We nearly lost two of our guys overboard. I was surprised they managed to stay on the boat. It was pretty impressive."
Brady remains upbeat about the performance of USA 87, which after all is probably to be considered the team's second boat after USA 98. "It was the first time we saw these yachts sailing in real waves. Our performance was as expected. We are definitely one of the stronger teams in a breeze. We know that our boat is quick enough that if you get into trouble, you can get back into the race."
Head of Emirates Team New Zealand, Grant Dalton, was pleased to notch up a first victory for the Kiwis, but he rated the speed of the Italian teams highly. "We were very impressed today with the speed shown by Luna Rossa and Mascalzone Latino. They had a really good day. Alinghi continues to impress. The boat is fast and the crew is very polished."
Alinghi pitman Josh Belsky puts their success down to good boat speed but above all some great decision making by the brains at the back. "It’s a lot easier on you if you can get off the starting line in the front row. In the first race we got away cleanly, Brad [Butterworth] picked the shifts right and did a great job in getting us out in front. Once you get out in front in this class you’re off.
"In the second race we made it harder on ourselves but we were able to scratch our way back on the first beat. We had our hands full during the whole race but it felt like the boat was going well. I can’t say enough about what a good job the afterguard did in picking our way back into it."
I don’t think it was with any great regret that the management of BMW Oracle Racing accepted Chris Dickson’s resignation yesterday.
