Day 3 - Round Robin 1

The Races:

1st Race:

Damiani Italia Challenge bt. K-Challenge

2nd Race:

Team ORIGIN bt. Alinghi

3rd Race:

BMW Oracle Racing bt. China Team

4th Race:

Luna Rossa vs Team Shosholoza - Postponed due to gear breakage & high winds

Today started off weather wise fairly murky, quite dull & grey in Auckland today. By Mid afternoon, all that had changed as the wind shift came & the predicted 25knt breeze kicked up. Before all that though we had the 1st race, very nice, tight, well sailed race by Italia.

The next race was the one I had been waiting for. Alinghi Vs Team Origin. Great use of spectator fleet by Origin, forcing Alinghi in a series of tacks & turns. Incoming tide this morning at a tide turn of 12:30pm so with the course setting, the in flow pushed the boats more to the start line that one would want. In doing so, a great dial up by Origin, hard on the stern of Alinghi pusing them higher & higher and then, thinking they were smart and bang on the line, Alinghi crossed early, forcing them to tack back to re-start, all the whil

e Team Origin on starboard tack were flying away to a lead that Alinghi could not get in reach to attack. Race won & dusted, a loss to Alinghi, something they have not had to deal with for a while.

3rd Race between BMW Oracle Racing & China team was fairly predicatable, no surprises there. They were pushing to get all races completed by 2PM due to this 25knt wind shift to come through but given the last race, a headfoil on one of the Team New Zealand boats was damanged so the boat was taken back to the base to be repaired

 urgently while everyone waited, then on the tow out again, the winds came up like expected and the decision was made to pull the plug on todays races, no point risking further uneccessary damage to the yachts thsi early on in the regatta.

So the carry over will be Luna Rossa & Team Shosholoza racing their race tomorrow so I am told...will see how it plays out.

No word yet on Damiani's protest against ETNZ re points, so who knows.

I had a day out with my family today so I was not at the Viaduct but we did call in there on the way home where I got some shots of the newly launched 'Allogante' by Alloy Yachts only put down a few days before. Check the gallery for pics!

Races tomorrow:

1st Race:

Emirates Team New Zealand Vs China Team - Should be a walk in the park for ETNZ

2nd Race:

Greek Challenge Vs Luna Rossa - could be exciting given the evenness etc?

3rd Race:

BMW Oracle Racing Vs K-Challenge - Russell should surely have this one

4th Race:

Team Shosholoza Vs Team ORIGIN - Origin should get this

5th Race?:

Luna Rossa Vs Team Shosholoza - Another interesting even match up, will have to wait and see.

Catch you guys for more action tomorrow in apparantly lighter breezes!