America’s Cup: Luna Rossa and Emirates TNZ Score in First Races of Louis Vuitton Semi-Finals

BARCELONA, Spain, May 14, 2007 (The Boating Channel) - The Louis Vuitton Cup has been whittled down from eleven teams to just four. Emirates Team New Zealand, BMW Oracle, Luna Rossa and Desafío Español 2007 emerged from the Round Robins at the top of the leaderboard, and they are now paired up for the Semi Finals match portion of the event. Today they engaged in their first battles after a short four-day rest.

Following a few weeks of ragged scheduling dictated by fickle weather, the Round Robins finally closed last week with Team New Zealand in first place. BMW Oracle had been leading the Round Robin series from the start, but some false steps at the end cost them the top spot – and the right to select their opponent in the semi-finals. The second place ranking may prove costly for the Americans, who must sail the semi-finals against a strong Luna Rossa.

Emirates Team Zealand logically chose Desafio Espanol 2007 as its Semi Final opponent. The Spanish team has never beaten the Kiwis in seven tries during the pre-match events over the past three years. Today was no exception.

BMW Oracle’s history with Luna Rossa gave the Americans some reason for optimism. They have won six matches against the Italians, five of them in the last six races during the 2006 and 2007 events. But today’s race put them down by one in the best of nine series.

The Finals series will be a head-to-head competition between the two winners of the Semi-Finals. The victor in the Finals wins the right to take on Team Allinghi for the America’s Cup.

Racing will continue on Tuesday.

Match 1: Luna Rossa Challenge beat BMW ORACLE Racing

In the pre-start it looked as though Luna Rossa might be able to close BMW ORACLE Racing out above the Race Committee boat, but Chris Dickson and his afterguard had factored in some current sweeping across the start line. The American boat slotted in nicely next to the boat with Luna Rossa just to the left.

After sailing locked together for many minutes, which seemed very sensible with the wildly shifting offshore breeze, the Italians and Americans broke away to opposite sides of the course. Luna Rossa tactician Torben Grael found the better breeze to the left and the Italians rounded 52 seconds ahead.

Around the top mark, USA 98 picked up a beautiful puff of breeze and surged down the right-hand side of the course. The Italians meanwhile had already gybed off to the centre of the course and were wallowing by comparison. Dickson recouped a 400 metre deficit to put Luna Rossa helmsman James Spithill under pressure at the leeward gate, Dickson initiating an aggressive luffing match.

Spithill did just enough to claim the left-hand gate mark while the Americans peeled away to the right, just 7 seconds back. Again both boats gambled with their respective sides of the course and again the Italians’ faith in the left paid off as they leapt to another 400-metre lead.

This time the Italians did a better job of shadowing the Americans down the final run, and even when the breeze shifted nearly 180-degrees just before the finish, Luna Rossa capitalized on the changeable conditions and stretched the winning margin to 2:19 minutes at the finish.

Match 2: Emirates Team New Zealand beat Desafío Español

If the Italians and Americans were playing their match fast and loose, Emirates Team New Zealand took no such chances. Dean Barker won the right-hand end of the start and it wasn’t long before the Kiwis had established a small lead over Desafío Español 2007. After winning the lead from the right, Barker dragged the match to the left-hand layline and led Karol Jablonski to the first mark by 1:03.

However, with the Kiwis sailing very defensively they yielded some of that lead to round the left-hand leeward mark by just 41 seconds. The Spanish brought the match even closer up the final windward leg, rounding 30 seconds behind at the final turning mark.

As new breeze filled in across the course, and the teams were forced to douse spinnakers in favor of jibs for some close reaching to the finish, the Kiwis extended away to win by 43 seconds at the finish.