Day Two report from Newport America’s Cup World Series By Judith Krimski By the look of the crowd lining Fort Adams on Friday, over 9,000 strong, that America’s Cup fever has taken hold in Newport. The sailing community was out in force with many youth coaches taken their summer program charges to view the spectacle. “It’s a great way to start the summer.” said Colin Smith, Brown University sailor and Coach at Beverley Yacht Club in Marion Ma. “We brought a bunch of kids with us. After seeing this they’re all pumped to go racing.” After two days of exciting competition it’s totally appropriate to call James Spithill The Terminator. With wins in both fleet and match racing Oracle 4 is dominating the competition and cementing the likelihood that they will come away with the AC World Series victory. As the sea breeze filled in to a respectable 10-14 knots the day started off with the semi-finals match racing in which both Oracle crews handily won their races. They will face each other in the ultimate 4th of July finals face-off on Sunday. James Spithill and Oracle 4 took advantage of a starting mistake by Artemis Racing to take the lead in the first race. One which they never lost. Despite losing Terry Hutchinson, who Team Artemis hasn’t lost a race all season, is firmly in position to win the match racing part of the series. “Making it into the Semi Finals secured us the overall Championship for the year in the match racing… (But) we still feel we have a long way to go to match ORACLE TEAM USA and Emirates Team New Zealand. We’re a fairly young team and we have to get better, plain and simple.” Match race two started off with Russell Coutts showing his racing metal as he made an aggressive move to take a slight advantage over Team Luna Rossa Piranha. Even with Piranha biting at his heels throughout the race they were never able to get that coveted crossing advantage. The real treat of the day came with the fleet race. Race organizers moved the course closer to the shoreline so spectators could get up close and personal with these amazing vessels. At the start Emirates TeamNZ got off to a great start mid-line. It was questionable that they would get back into racing after a costly trim mistake in thursday’s match race caused a capsize. The wing filled with water, breaking off the top. The team burned the midnight oil and launched before noon with a fully repaired wing, ready to race, and eager to prove they could challenge for the top of the fleet. With Emirates NZ and Team Spithill racing around the course in 1-2 and Artemis not far behind the key to the day’s racing was to take advantage of some good pressure coming off the bottom course-right until the course boundary then sail in a nice tunnel of breeze up the center of the course. In the earlier part of the day course right was clearly favored with more breeze and a lift off the west side of the bay but as the sea breeze filled in lower right and mid-course looked better and better. With the fleet split the top three boats drag raced down the course at speeds up to 20 knots. Emirates suffered a breakdown of their starboard centerboard causing tremendous drag. While they struggled to fix it Team Spithill and Artemis battled for position on course right with Spithill winning out in a great lift and pressure off Fort Adams. After Emirates was able to jury rig their starboard centerboard they continued on in first place with Oracle chewing up their thin lead. At the leeward gates Emirates elected to go course left towards Fort Adams while Oracle jibed to go right. Coming back mid-course Emirates made a comfortable port cross on Team Spithill. But the racing wasn’t over. Once again Emirates and Oracle 4 split for the final run. Mid-course Emirates, on port, got tangled up with Oracle Coutts coming up the beat on starboard, and had to avoid. While no penalty was assessed it gave Spithill the time he needed to make his move. The boats came together just a few boat lengths from the final turning mark. Emirates still needed to jibe to make the turn. As their gennaker came around Spithill was able to accelerate and go by. Spithill smartly took a bit wider angle, left his gennaker up a few more seconds and launched his team into the lead sailing a speedy 17 knots to Emirates 12. “We got off the starting line well and the boys just dug in the whole way around and never gave up,” Spithill said. “We thought we had a shot at it (making the late pass), it was just a fantastic race track. There were a lot of passing opportunities out there; it was never over. But full credit to Team New Zealand, they did a lot of work last night and they got out there and were straight up to pace.” So The Terminator James Spithill just keeps on coming on. Saturday promises to be another day of great fleet racing. The match racing finals will be run on Sunday.
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