Alinghi Finds More at Finish for 2-0 Lead
Alinghi of Switzerland passed Team New Zealand on the downwind run to the finish and held on for a heart-stopping win and a 2-0 lead in the America’s Cup today.
New Zealand-born skipper Russell Coutts steered Alinghi to a seven-second victory that put his crew only three victories shy of taking the America’s Cup to Europe for the first time in 152 years.
It was a painful defeat for two-time defending champion Team New Zealand, which seemed to be in control after Saturday’s opening-race disaster, when its boat practically fell apart and forced the Kiwis to drop out only 25 minutes after the start, handing the win to Alinghi.
Team New Zealand led by 26 seconds as the boats rounded the fifth mark and headed down the final 3.25-nautical-mile leg on the Hauraki Gulf.
After Alinghi crossed the finish line one length ahead, Team New Zealand skipper Dean Barker slumped against the steering wheel in disappointment in the late-afternoon sunshine.
Coutts extended his record to 11 straight America’s Cup victories. The first nine wins came when he led Team New Zealand to five-race sweeps in 1995 and 2000. He handed the wheel to Barker for the clinching race in 2000, then jumped ship along with several other Kiwis only two months later. Switzerland is the first landlocked country to reach the America’s Cup match.
Race 3 in the best-of-nine series is scheduled for Tuesday.
The Kiwis had sped past the Swiss on the downwind second leg, and the Swiss pulled the same move for the stunning comeback on the six-leg, 18.5-mile course.
As the boats sailed under asymmetrical spinnakers practically across the wind out toward the left side of the course, Alinghi fouled the Kiwis’ air and was able to sail over the top of them.
When the boats turned back to the right, the Swiss were in the controlling position and they held it into the finish line.
NZL-82 had been repaired overnight after the end of its boom broke and its jib blew out twice during Saturday’s chaotic race.
Today’s race was delayed for more than two hours while the committee waited for the breeze to build, and there was a further delay because a portion of the huge spectator fleet had drifted onto the course.
Alinghi rounded the first mark with a 12-second lead, but it wasn’t long before the Kiwis rolled past the Swiss on a long starboard gybe.
The Kiwis went from trailing by more than two lengths at the first mark to leading by two about halfway down the leg.
*
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
America’s Cup
* Today’s race -- Team New Zealand saw 26-second lead disappear as Alinghi won by a boat length.
* Format -- Best-of-nine series (Alinghi leads, 2-0.)
* Course -- Windward-leeward three miles, three times around, total 18.5 miles.
* Boats -- International America’s Cup Class, 75 feet long, 110-foot masts, 16-person crews.
* Schedule -- (U.S. dates, 4:15 p.m. PST) Race 3, Monday; Race 4: Wednesday; Race 5, Friday; Race 6, Saturday*; Race 7, Feb. 24*; Race 8, Feb. 26*; Race 9, Feb. 28*
* TV -- ESPN2
*If necessary