News

02/10/05
Evening news Day 4 Act 8

Champion’s comeback from Alinghi
Race 1 Alinghi V Mascalzone Latino-Capitalia Team

Alinghi wanted the left and took the left, delivering a perfect start. Heading upwind, Alinghi held their early advantage, extending it to a 33 second delta at the 1st top mark. The spinnaker hoist was smooth as the Defender headed downwind to round the right hand leeward gate. By the 2nd top mark, Alinghi was ahead by 1 minute 20 seconds, a lead extended to 1 minute 48 seconds over the finish line.

Race 2 against United Internet Team Germany was the one to watch, as Alinghi crossed the start line, a mechanism at the top of the mast broke and the main dropped a few metres. Peter Holmberg describes the recovery:

“At the start of the 2nd race of the day against Germany, right off the start as we were winding in the main sheet, there was a big bang. Immediately we looked around to see what it was, looked up and saw that something at the top of the mainsail had broken and so right away Pieter van Nieuwenhuyzen [the bowman] hooked himself onto a halyard and went up the rig [35m high]. A mechanism at the top of the mast had broken and so he effected a repair and once he gave us the go ahead, we sheeted the main back on and then eventually he came down. It probably took 5 to 8 minutes all told and the German team had got ahead of us. But once we were able to sheet back on and put the mighty beast Alinghi back on the wind, we reeled them in. We almost got them by the top mark, they tacked on us once or twice, but we just wanted to be patient and get around the top mark behind them. They then had a tear in the spinnaker and had to peel, so we took that opportunity to attack them and pass them.” Alinghi went on to win the race by a 2 minute 16 second delta.

Alinghi at the end of day 4 of Act 8 is at the top of the leaderboard with 7 points. BMW Oracle Racing, Emirates Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa Challenge all have 6 points. Tomorrow Alinghi will meet Team Shosholoza in match 1 of flight 8 and Emirates Team New Zealand in match 6 of flight 9.

Pieter van Nieuwenhuyzen (NL), the Alinghi bowman was modest about the part he played:

“Something broke and we were able to make repairs and were able to sheet back in and continue racing. It has happened to me before on other boats but not on this one. These things happen from time to time.”

Ed Baird, Alinghi helmsman for Act 8 was full of praise:

“Pieter van Nieuwenhuyzen is the man of the day.”

We also asked Peter Holmberg why he and Jochen Schuemann traded places as strategist.

“We had talked about crew rotation prior to the regatta and as I did my last steering job back in Valencia it was nice to hop back on the boat. I see a bit being off the boat, but it is more valuable being on the boat if you’re not driving and take in everything else that goes on around you that you can’t take in when you are driving. So I hopped on as Strategist today.”

Just off the start line in the match against United Internet Team Germany on day 4 of Act 8, Alinghi (SUI75) broke a mechanism at the top of the mast and bowman Pieter van Nieuwenhuyzen (NL) had to go up the rig to fix the problem. The recovery was less than 8 minutes, in which time Alinghi had dropped behind the German challenge. By the finish, the Swiss Defender was ahead by 2 minutes 16 seconds.