Alinghi On Match Point For The 32nd America’s Cup

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ALINGHI ON MATCH POINT FOR THE 32ND AMERICA’S CUP
2007-06-30
Alinghi, the Swiss Defender of the 32nd America’s Cup, moved to match point in its series against the Challenger, Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ) with a hard fought 28-second victory.
 
It was Alinghi’s third consecutive win in the Match and the second straight in which it rallied from an early deficit. Alinghi now leads the series 4-2 and one more win will cap its defence of the America’s Cup and will mean the Cup is to stay in Europe.
 
In an 8-10 east/southeasterly, Alinghi helmsman, Ed Baird, did a good job controlling ETNZ helmsman Dean Barker in the pre-start. Baird held the starboard-tack advantage entering the 5-minute period and used it to dial ETNZ up head-to-wind. Baird started Alinghi tight at the race committee boat end of the line and both boats drag-raced out to the left-hand side of the course on starboard. Alinghi was forced to tack away first and ETNZ won the first cross when it hooked into left-hand pressure on port tack. ETNZ led by 14 seconds at the windward mark, but Alinghi was tight behind and attacked on the run to claw the Kiwis back in and round the leeward gate 11 seconds behind. Alinghi was able to split with the Kiwis through the leeward gate, rounding to port while the Challenger rounded to starboard.
The turning point came halfway up the 3-mile leg, when Alinghi using its starboard-tack advantage, forced ETNZ to tack on its leebow twice. At the third meeting Alinghi had gained enough that ETNZ was forced to tack further to leeward. Baird poked Alinghi’s bow up and moved into the lead for good. Warwick Fleury, mainsail trimmer, comments: “The shift didn’t go with us, but I think we got a little bit more extra pressure and our tacks were very good. Once we started tacking we made pretty big gains.”
 
The Swiss Defender began the run to the finish with a 16-second advantage, but ETNZ was far from done. The Kiwis closed up to within a boat length about three-quarters of the way down the leg, but Alinghi defended and extended the lead to win by 28-seconds.
 
Race 7 of the 32nd Match is scheduled tomorrow at 1500 hours.
 

WARWICK FLEURY, MAINSAIL TRIMMER COMMENTS ON A GREAT DAY:
A great win – how did that feel?
“We wanted that one, it didn’t all go our way in the first half of the race but we got there in the end which is what matters. It feels good, it makes up for one or two of the others that we feel we should have won. It’s great for the confidence to be able to win a Cup race when you are trailing.”
 
What was the turning point of today’s race?
“Brad was keen to get the left-hand gate mark and we got it, so that was a pretty key moment to get it off to the right. We were going pretty well and were just able to tack back so they couldn’t quite cross us. That was the key moment just being able to stop them from crossing and then we got into a good tacking duel and we came out ahead. We also did a really good job on the last run to hold on to the lead.”
 
Is this the closest America’s Cup you have ever raced?
“It’s been really hard. There hasn’t been an easy race in this contest. It’s amazing, we were talking on the way in, how many lead changes there have been. It has to be unprecedented and it just shows how close the teams are.”
 
Did Alinghi get the start that it wanted?
“We wanted the right in the pre-start and we got that. Even though in the end the left ended up paying at the top, we were able to hold ETNZ almost to the layline out on the left side. Then we tacked off and we were still in a very strong position. In the end the breeze started to drop and it went left and they were able to cross ahead so that certainly didn’t go our way.”
 
A look forward to tomorrow?
“It’s match point so we will try to finish it off tomorrow and if not, we have still got another two shots at it. The racing is very, very close and none of them have been easy and we are expecting more of the same tomorrow. It will be business as usual but we will certainly be trying for it.”

ENDS

Alinghi flies the colours of the Société Nautique de Genève, Switzerland. Its partners for the 2007 campaign are UBS and BT Infonet (Main Partners), as well as Audemars Piguet, SGS, Nespresso, MSC Cruises, WISeKey and North Sails (Co sponsors).
Visit our web site at: www.alinghi.com

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