Race 1 Start Photo: ©2007 CupInfo

Pre-start:
 Wind 8-10 knots, southeast.  Around 50 spectator boats circled, almost half of them corporate or charter powerboats.  BMW Oracle guests are on Alcor, two huge sloops fly the NZ flag.  Vava is out here, too, but Ernesto Bertarelli is sailing on SUI-91 (the only Swiss onboard today).

+39 was late joining the other boats, they were still working on their mast.  Now mainsail goes up.  Mascalzone's mainsail is the squarest of the fleet.  Heavier genoa on Oracle than TNZ it seems, as both are tuning up now before the start sequence begins.   A short delay ensures for wind shift and setting the 2.8 mile course.

Start:
Alinghi crosses the line too early, resulting in a start 40-seconds late for the defender,  trailing the challengers by 6 boat lengths.  Mid-fleet +39 crosses on port ahead of Areva.  Despite a cloud cell coming on from right side of race course, Alinghi tacks back on starboard towards the center of the course, while +39 is the only boat to go right.

The pack on left side of fleet was led handily by Mascalzone, while USA-87 and NZL-84 pushed further out to the left side on a long drag race.  On LiveSailing, +39 continued to gain on the right and drew out their lead to 40 meters after 10 minutes, leveraging the 3-4 knots more breeze they found compared to the rest of the fleet.

Coming back from the right to the rest of the fleet, +39 still maintained a one boat length advantage over Mascalzone, and tacked in their wind, pushing the rascals off towards the left again.  At the back end of the fleet were China Team and BMW Oracle, around 300 meters behind the leaders.

Alinghi recovered from their blown start to climb into 4th place at the first mark, behind +39, Mascalzone, and Areva Challenge.  At Mark 1 Mascalzone trailed by 20, Areva by 35, and Alinghi by 45 despite just finding an inside spot on Shosholoza.

Downwind:
All boats went off downwind on port with A-sails and staysails, +39 gaining on a right shift to increase  their lead tremendously, 70m on LiveSailing, just 5 minutes after rounding the mark.

		Photo: ©2007 CupInfo

Showing superior ability to sail very low, +39 cruised away from the competition, while in the back of the fleet BMW Oracle and ETNZ were neck and neck, NZL-84's bow barely 3 meters behind USA-87's stern. 

Gybing on the layline, +39 raised their genoa nearing the mark, made a perfect drop and chose the left gate.   Mascalzone lost some distance as Areva rounded the right mark in second spot.  Drama for Victory, ripping their A-sail about 800m from the gate.   A quick change limited their  damage to a few boatlengths lost.

Alinghi rounded in relatively clear air in front of Luna Rossa.  ETNZ was pushed to the left end mark by BMW Oracle coming on starboard.  On the drop, ETNZ wrapped their halyard around the stay but didn't lose much ground before parting from Oracle after rounding the gate.

The cloud cell reached the course as wind picked up a bit in a small right shift which penalized ETNZ and ITA-94.

Upwind Again:
+39 in the center of the course continued to lead the fleet by 100m, picking wind oscillations, followed by Areva maintaingin their 2 boatlength advantage over Mascalzone ,according to LiveSailing, while UITG crosses behind Alinghi.

In the middle of the pack, Luna Rossa and Oracle drag raced towards the starboard layline.  +39 rounded the third mark in the lead again, Areva 31 seconds behind, 11 seconds ahead of Mascalzone.  Then Alinghi, UITG, Shosholoza, Desafío and Oracle and Prada.

Last Leg:
All boats went downwind on starboard in the beginning of the leg, with +39 the first boat to gybe back towards center course.

As the wind eased across the course, USA-87 was the only boat to push left, achieving a considerably better downwind angle than the rest of the fleet.

While +39 contended with a burst spinnaker, Alinghi recouped the lead, gaining on a big right shift, pulling out to an indicated 160m advantage over BMW Oracle, but minutes later, a new right shift helped USA-87 close the gap.  Separation from SUI-91 played to BMW Oracle's advantage and they cut greatly into Alinghi's lead.

The Swiss gybed to starboard as the two boats converged with less than a boatlength advantage for BMW coming on port, gybing and changing spinnaker in a perfect peeling manoeuvre, right on top of Alinghi !

The switch to a new and lighter A-sail let BMW Oracle power away with Alinghi forced to gybe back to port.  Not allowing too much separation, and with 400 meters remaining to the finish line, the American gybed in turn to control the fleet.

Once again helped by the gods of winds, or perhaps of something else, BMW Oracle demonstrated great ability to sail very low as they sped up towards the finishing line.   While Oracle finished, Alinghi wrapped their A-sail on their last gybe !

It's Shosholoza in Second !
Nearing the finish the South African on port, with a lot of heel, suddenly raised their jib to cope with a massive right shift, but RSA-83 was slow to accelerate.   Mascalzone came in from the right hand side and were able to bear away in that same shift towards the finish line with spinnaker still up.  But Shosholoza found the power they needed to get across the line a few seconds ahead of Mascalzone and claim second.

Fourth place was still up for grabs, and Alinghi lost it barely to ETNZ, who recovered very nicely on the final downwind leg.  UITG crossed the line with good speed, 10 seconds ahead of ITA-94,  and then followed by Desafío.

Areva came in much later thanks to these fluky winds, losing a lot of time on this right hand side of the last leg.  The devastated crew of +39, who sailed well and led for quite a while, crossed the line 15 seconds later in eleventh position, followed soon after by CHN-95.

Act 13 Race 1 to BMW Racing Oracle .  A great tactical call on their part !

Race 2 was cancelled due to inconsistent wind conditions.