It was amazing. What a race! What a team!!! Alinghi manages to turn around a race that was thought to be lost in the final metres before the finish. Coutts and Co. make up 33 seconds on the final downwind leg and achieve a victory that could almost be a preliminary decision psychologically.
The sailing day does not start very promisingly. Start postponed. The conditions don't stand up to comparison with yesterday. A shifting wind of around five knots. The sun is blazing at 28 degrees. The two teams have to wait two and a half hours until the sea breeze from the south-east stabilises to some extent.
Alinghi uses the waiting time by completing speed test runs with the sparring boat. "There's a lot to adjust," says Jochen Schümann. "We try to find the optimum setup." But these routines also help to calm the nerves. You don't have to think about the what-ifs. Automatisms calm the nerves. It's a similar effect when a tennis player bounces the ball on the ground before serving.
The New Zealanders have to do without the so-called customisation with the training boat. NZL 81 was also badly battered in yesterday's breakage at the festival. Dean Barker did not want to reveal what exactly happened. In any case, the crew is condemned to inactivity during the waiting period. They have stretched an awning over the main boom and are bobbing around on the track. It looks cool in view of the training Alinghi boats.
Once the starting boat is reasonably stable, Russell Coutts begins the trial runs to the starting line. He practises the approach to the line almost 30 times. The aim is to get a feel for the approach lines and the timing to the start line for the prevailing conditions. Barker completes just half as many test runs. He seems to be very confident.
The tension mounts as the starting buoy is finally laid out. There is dancing and drumming on the spectator boats. They move closer and closer to the race course. The course marshal has a hard time keeping them off the course. The race has to be postponed for another half hour until the port side of the course is clear.
Then it starts. As the opponents enter the starting box, ten helicopters buzz in the air. Cowbells ring out as Alinghi has to approach Team New Zealand in blue with no right of way this time. The Swiss look very strong during the dial-up. When they shoot up, they quickly let out the sheet and stop very effectively. The Kiwis virtually shoot past to windward and have no chance of taking up a controlling position on the right-hand side of Alinghi. They have to tack away
After that, Alinghi is at the stern and finally leads to the line. Team New Zealand is on the defensive. It finally has to tack away at the start and leave the favoured left side to Alinghi. After another tack, a long speed comparison begins with wind from starboard. This is what everyone has been waiting for. Now it remains to be seen what Hula is really worth.
But nothing happens between the two boats for a long time. It seems that Alinghi is sailing higher but Team New Zealand is faster. The way to windward (VMG) is the same. As planned at the start, Alinghi gets a little more wind on the left and a small spin. Coutts tacked, but barely managed to cross in front of Barker's bow. It only works just before the buoy thanks to more wind on the left. Alinghi is 12 seconds ahead at the windward mark.
Both boats were equally fast at the cross. Now Hula has to prove itself on the downwind course. This is where the design innovation should be particularly effective. And indeed, the Kiwis can hold deep and attack with good speed on the leeward side. If Alinghi jibes now and Barker reacts quickly with the same manoeuvre, the Swiss are immediately in the slipstream.
Alinghi rolls away the staysail, turns on and.... turns back again. A mock jibe. But Barker was paying attention. Copied the manoeuvre. The same manoeuvre again and then it works the third time. Barker is fooled and jibes to the left (viewed from below). Alinghi heads to the right with free wind.
But it does nothing for Alinghi. On the contrary. Barker gets the wind and turns the deficit into a 34-second lead. "We simply did everything wrong on this leg," says Jochen Schümann. "Wrong side, wrong sail and and and...." The team changes the spinnaker in the last gybe. A perfect manoeuvre, but it's too late. The New Zealanders are over.
Schümann and Co show patience on the following cross. They do not attack frantically but follow conservatively. Some interpret this as resignation. Because the gap is widening and Alinghi is still following without putting up a fight. But shortly before the buoy, the Swiss suddenly halved the gap to a total of 26 seconds after a few well-considered turns.
Everyone now expects the race to be over and NZL 82 to go downwind again. "It's a rocket with the spinnaker," says the New Zealand live commentator. Far from it. Alinghi catches up by 8 seconds, making it clear that the wind on the first spinnaker course was responsible for the loss.
At the leeward buoy, Alinghi is within 14 seconds and you get the feeling that they are about to overtake on the cross. After a quick tack, they could actually capitalise on their superior height and nip the Kiwis in the bud. But it doesn't work. So Coutts reaches into his bag of tricks. A mock tack, and another, and another... Both boats are almost on the spot and still manage to tack. Now it's the crew's work that counts. Who can get their boat running again faster? And the Kiwis show that they don't need to hide from Alinghi. They parried all attacks. This is masterful sport.
Coutts refuses to back down and starts a turning duel with a total of 33 turns. Team New Zealand aggressively covers the left side, which has been the better side on all legs so far. And the wind is fresher there this time too. The lead grows again by 12 to 26 seconds. It is astonishing how tenaciously Alinghi is able to keep up the race, even though the team loses a minimal amount at every tack. "We simply had to do something," says Jochen Schümann later.
The race seems to be over at the windward mark. But then comes Alinghi's decisive manoeuvre: a tack-jibe-set. They come to the buoy with wind from starboard, tack and jibe immediately, raising the spinnaker (set). Team New Zealand gybes parallel but is already so far ahead that Alinghi is free to the left. The wind is clearly better there again.
Alinghi gets closer and closer. Their trim looks very different to that of their opponent. He has tilted his mast far forwards. Murray Jones in the mast is delighted: "good pressure, good pressure", he shouts through the microphone. But then the layline to the finish line is reached. Alinghi has to jibe and Barker goes with it. He just has to sail straight to the finish.
"I don't know why they didn't do that either," says Schümann. His team luffed up for one last desperate attack and what he hadn't expected: Barker went with it. It was the decisive mistake. Alinghi is significantly faster "because we had set a flatter spinnaker, which ran much better overall than the other one on the first downwind leg."
The Swiss pass almost unchallenged, jibe twice more and cross the finish line as winners. "That was incredible. We wouldn't have expected it ourselves," says an overjoyed Schümann. Such exuberant joy has never been seen on the Swiss ship, even after the Louis Vuitton Cup. Bertarelli hugs everyone, raises his arms in the air and even the cool Russell Coutts jumps like a madman. An incredible race
Cowbells ringing all over the railway. Faint horror on the Kiwi boats. The helicopter with the oversized black "loyal" flag leaves the stadium, apparently completely unnerved. The crew of the "Iceberg" lean disillusioned against the life-size bull mounted on the bow. The ship with the thirty red lucky socks on the railing bobs in the swell of the large Alinghi mother ship.
It's a disaster for Dean Barker and his crew. Yesterday was already hard enough to beat. But to lose a race by such a narrow margin is extremely nerve-wracking. Good for the Kiwis that they can take a break tomorrow on the rest day. Perhaps the frustration will then be forgotten.
"We have to keep the positive things in mind," says the skipper. And there are plenty of them. The boat was fast, the crew work was good, as were most of the tactical decisions. But in the end, Alinghi came out on top again. The pattern from the Louis Vuitton Cup seems to be continuing.
