Sailing: GBR vow to carry on the fight

This was not a glorious death. Britain's first challenge for the America's Cup in 15 years saved their worst performance in the 21 races for which they lasted for their last outing in the quarter-final of the Louis Vuitton Cup yesterday. It was not pretty to watch. Nor was it a true reflection of what Ian Walker and his team of raw recruits, thrown into the most ruthless and unforgiving of arenas in sailing's trench warfare, have achieved.

But the reaction was as defiant as the giant Union flags streaming proudly from the masts of two yachts declaring their continued support for GBR Challenge as they crossed the finish line for the last time in this campaign, 1min 42sec behind the New York Yacht Club's Stars & Stripes. Revenge for 1851 will have to wait a little longer.

Peter Harrison, the syndicate head, has sunk about £20m of his personal fortune into an adventure which he has clearly and hugely enjoyed. It took only minutes for him to declare that he would be keeping about one third of the team on for between six and 10 weeks to continue testing, including the boat he described as his "secret weapon", the tandem-keeled GBR 78.

Evidence that Harrison is listening and learning was contained in his additional admission that he now intended to keep an eye on the "transfer market" of design talent.

And he hoped that others would now join him in what had always been planned as a sustained campaign to win the Cup. "From the beginning it was a case of putting the foundations in place for the future," said Harrison, with Walker adding: "I don't cry very often, but today there was a tear in my eye on the way out and again when we got back to the base. But, when we look back on this, we will look back on it with pride."

The fifth race against a Stars & Stripes which has moved several gears ahead of its slightly older sister-ship, however, is not one which will feature in the year-end highlights video show. The first attempt at a start featured two cringe-making moments as twice Wight Lightning was earthed more securely than a church spire conducter, wallowing in the water and a sitting target in the cross-hairs of the American boat.

Twice the Americans called for a penalty, the second time the umpires agreed and, not realising that the sequence had been abandoned, both boats started with Britain well down. GBR was saved by a race committee in some disarray of its own, but there was no salvation the second time as they were once again cleaned out, though this time avoiding a penalty, in the pre-start manoeuvres.

This by the boat making a comeback from a watery grave of its own. The second of this generation of dark blue yachts carrying the name Stars & Stripes and the sail number USA 77, sank at the entrance to Long Beach harbour in June and then had a whole new bow section fitted in the team's Halsey Street compound.

From then on the skipper, Kenny Read, with two of the greatest tacticians in the world, Tom Whidden and Terry Hutchinson, made the race a procession, made only slightly more embarrassing as GBR's second spinnaker hoist went spectacularly wrong and they had to hoist a second sail to replace the twisted and ripped first.

It was also a cruel and jarring note in what has been a harmonious testament to slick crew work in all the other races. If nothing else, the British way of learning to handle these very difficult boats has won plaudits from all their rivals, including those who have been at the game for a long time.

Stars & Stripes go through to the repêchage play-off starting on Saturday, along with Sweden's Victory Challenge, who made equally short work of Le Defi Areva of France, another syndicate woefully short of time to prepare for a game that has moved substantially forward since the last Cup in 2000.

There they will be paired with two of the teams from the top division, OneWorld Challenge of Seattle, which chooses any of the other three, and Prada of Italy, in another best-of-seven.