Sailing: OneWorld hit back with a win
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Your support makes all the difference.After two days of renewed bickering and accusations and three days of weather interruptions, the America's Cup action returned to where it belongs yesterday: the water.
Well, all the action was on the water. A jury did decide to hear a protest against OneWorld Challenge next week on the grounds that it may have broken the rules of sportsmanship. Dennis Conner's Stars & Stripes made the complaint and are seeking the disqualification of their rival from the competition. However, they must first complete this week's Louis Vuitton Cup quarter-final elimination series.
The protest has potentially wide-ranging ramifications with lawyers likely to be fighting for months. The whole event would grind to a halt.
But, on a sunny Hauraki Gulf yesterday, with light but unstable conditions, Seattle's OneWorld hit Stripes where it hurts most: on the scoreboard. It took them until the fourth of six legs to out-think and out-muscle Stripes and go one up in the repêchage section.
Eventually, the form book was vindicated, as Prada of Italy sailed calmly and flawlessly to beat Sweden's Victory Challenge.
Both Stripes and Victory could point to the streaky nature of the 10-knot northerly breeze though Stripes were kicking themselves for letting OneWorld go when they had led for the first three legs. "We gave a good team too many chances," the Stripes skipper Kenny Read said. "It was decided when they sailed away from the direction we were taking when setting their spinnaker at the start of the second run. They capitalised on that. We'll lick our wounds tonight but we're still confident."
For Victory, Jesper Bank said that Prada had found some extra speed downwind which had allowed them to build a comfortable margin.
LOUIS VUITTON CUP (Auckland): Quarter-final Repêchage, Race day 1: OneWorld (US) bt Stars & Stripes (US) 1min 16sec (OneWorld lead best-of-seven series 1-0); Prada (It) bt Victory Challenge (Swe) 1:31 (Prada lead 1-0).
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