Sailing finds its Tiger Woods

A young Australian is whipping up a storm

A clean sweep against some of the best in the world has made a young Australian called James Spithill, always referred to as Jimmy, the Tiger Woods of America's Cup sailing in the two short weeks of the competition so far here in the City of Sails. He is still only 23 and this is, in effect, his second campaign as skipper of a challenge syndicate, though it took some time for the watching pundits to take on board just how dominant his role would become.

Spithill was brought in early to the Seattle-based OneWorld challenge mounted by the telecoms billionaire Craig McCaw, but his appointment was overshadowed by the high-profile switching of camps by Laurie Davidson, who had twice designed winning boats for his native New Zealand, and the arrival of a raft of Kiwi defectors orchestrated by a man who has sailed for his native Australia as a defender and then, twice, for Japan as a challenger, Peter Gilmour.

Gilmour was always seen as the driving force of the challenge, so it came as a bit of a surprise when he announced, a couple of days before racing started, that in fact his young compatriot, Spithill, would be skipper and helmsman for the first round-robin.

Eight races and eight wins later Gilmour says he can see no way in which he can ask Spithill to move over. Gilmour remains a powerful force within the team, sails on the boat as a tactician, and offers protection to Spithill, keeping him out of the media scrum by fielding questions himself and leaving Jimmy to concentrate on the racing, which he has been doing to spectacular effect.

Gilmour was able to take his bold gamble on the former Australian youth match-racing champion because OneWorld arrived in Auckland with two boats earlier than other challengers and went through a rigorous in-house match-racing programme – exactly as New Zealand did in San Diego in 1995. Sptihill, a rising star for some five years on the Australian circuit, impressed consistently, and so Gilmour handed over the wheel.

In the last America's Cup here, in 1999-2000, Spithill was at the helm of Young Australia, a low-budget campaign run by his fellow Sydneysider Syd Fischer. This time he has a much more lavish platform, better props, a formidable supporting cast, and has taken to the big stage with a cool accomplishment that belies his years. The transition from youthful bravado to measured bravura is complete.

Andy Green, the tune-up helmsman for Britain's GBR Challenge here, has sailed against Spithill many times. "Jimmy has dedicated the last five years of his life to match racing," he says. "He's calm, he's confident and he's on his A game right now. He is one of the boys, but he is always in control of himself. I've seen him in some of the more extreme situations, when it can be fairly heated – and it will be like that some more in this series – but he can hold his own."

The man himself tooktime out to go windsurfing yesterday – there was plenty of puff to make that exciting – switched quickly on to diplomatic autopilot when he was asked how he felt about being benchmark man in an event which is the pinnacle of his sport. "I am feeling good about the team as I go into round-robin two," he said. "We still have a long way to go and the competition is tough and any team could go on to win."

Gilmour himself does not quite see it that way. Conventional wisdom here has three teams, OneWorld, Switzerland's Alinghi, skippered by Russell Coutts, and the Larry Ellison-backed Oracle BMW Racing team from San Francisco, vying for the two places in January's Louis Vuitton Cup final. Gilmour's view is that Alinghi and Oracle are vying for one slot because OneWorld will have the other. Tell that to a supremely relaxed Coutts.

The action is due to begin again on Wednesday with a repeat series of eight races for each syndicate, one against each of their opponents. Before that there is one remaining race from the first round- robin, the all-Italian head-to-head between the 2000 winners of the Louis Vuitton Cup, Prada, and the upstarts from Naples, Mascalzone Latino. All of the syndicates have been working on modifications, so the crews have not, by any means, had a week off.

The British GBR Challenge have been looking at three or four options for change. But one that does not seem likely is in the position of Andy Beadsworth as starting helmsman. By coming in mid-round to replace Green and then delivering four good starts, which were turned into three consecutive wins, he is the man firmly in place. One of the earlier losses was by just 20 seconds to Dennis Conner's Stars & Stripes, and that is one result which will have to be reversed if the British are to achieve their publicly stated aim of being in the top four when the quarter-final groupings are decided.

The French would be happy just to qualify – Le Defi Areva has yet to put one point on the board. They will be fighting to avoid being the one challenge eliminated at the end of this stage with with Mascalzone boys – whose only win was against the French. If that result were to be reversed in the second round-robin and they were both to lose again to all their other opponents, then the tie-break system would favour the second-round result. The French could yet survive.