Vision for Speed on Display as Kiwis Inch Closer to Victory
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Version 0 of 1. SAN FRANCISCO — When Larry Ellison and Russell Coutts sketched out their vision of their new-age America’s Cup, the final draft must have looked very much like Sunday’s second race. Two raptor-like catamarans matching each other’s moves at speeds exceeding 40 knots downwind and an astonishing 30 knots upwind with, in the end, only 16 seconds separating them after 10 nautical miles of jousting over the waves. Two raptor-like catamarans doing all this close to shore with a big crowd watching in the San Francisco sunshine and with a large spectator fleet rounding out the numbers in the choppy waters beyond Alcatraz Island. “That was the dream,” said Iain Murray, the America’s Cup regatta director of the race. “I’m just happy that people can understand now. Some people can get a vision and some people can read three-dimensional plans, and some people can’t, and to see it in real life and in front of TV and for everyone to see it, I’m just gratified. I’m just happy that people can understand what this has been all about.” The big thrills are coming late in this long-underwhelming Cup, probably much too late to build a significant new audience for the sport or to make San Franciscans shift their gaze from updates on the 49ers. And as spectacular as Sunday’s second race proved to be in strong winds and an ebb tide, this was still not quite the vision that Ellison and Coutts had of the America’s Cup in San Francisco Bay. Emirates Team New Zealand, not Oracle Team USA, was the winner by 16 seconds, and although Oracle has shown clear and significant improvement in the last three races, Team New Zealand is now on the verge of wresting the America’s Cup from Ellison and the Golden Gate Yacht Club and carrying it back in triumph to Auckland. After splitting Sunday’s two races, Team New Zealand leads Oracle, 7-1, and, after a rest day on Monday, will close out the victory if it can sweep both races scheduled for Tuesday. As for Oracle, which was hit with a two-race penalty before this final series began, it must win eight of nine races if it is to retain the cup. That sounds like quite a reach in light of Team New Zealand’s polished crew work. And although Ellison, the American software billionaire who brought the trophy to San Francisco, flashed a thumb’s up to his crew from a chase boat after it had won Sunday’s first race by 47 seconds, the challengers were ultimately the ones exchanging slaps on the back that might have been vigorous enough to be felt through the body armor that is now de rigueur in this high-speed, high-risk Cup. “It was very important to bounce back after” the first race, said Dean Barker, Team New Zealand’s skipper and helmsman. “I think if you didn’t enjoy today’s racing, you probably should watch another sport.” The New Zealanders still have a very comfortable lead. But sailing is a momentum game, and the Kiwis appeared in danger of losing it after nearly capsizing Saturday and losing Race 8 to Oracle, and then losing Race 9 on Sunday without ever getting into the lead. Team New Zealand is not dominating the upwind legs as it did earlier in the regatta, and Oracle appears to have benefited as well from the mid-series decision to replace the veteran American tactician John Kostecki with the British Olympic star Ben Ainslie. But with Race 10 and quite possibly the Cup in the balance Sunday afternoon, Ainslie and the rest of the Oracle brain trust could not find a way to get ahead of Team New Zealand for good. There were four lead changes in all, three on the critical upwind leg. At the third mark, the gap between the two massive multihulls was one second. But Team New Zealand took control for good on the final downwind leg, swooping through the finish line in 22 minutes, with Oracle fast behind in 22:16. “The boats are just so close in performance both upwind and downwind,” said Glenn Ashby, Team New Zealand’s wing trimmer. “It really comes down to a good old ding-dong, trench warfare, touch-your-bayonet sort of yachting, and that’s fantastic to be a part of.” The bigger thrill, of course, is winning the Cup, and Team New Zealand, which won the trophy in 1995 in San Diego and successfully defended it in Auckland in 2000, is on track for another victory and on the doorstep of having to make the difficult decisions that will go with it. Chief among them: should these stirring, futuristic racing machines be abandoned for the slower monohulls that have traditionally been used in the Cup? “I was skeptical that they could be used for match racing,” said Bruno Troublé, the former French America’s Cup helmsman. “I knew these boats were great for fleet racing but not for match racing. But match racing when they are equal like today is amazing. It will be difficult to go back.” |