Sunday, November 15, 2009

Hard times

It wasn't a good day for BMW ORACLE Racing in Nice at the Louis Vuitton Trophy on Sunday. Qualifying in the bottom half of the fleet ahead of round two means we only race the top four teams in this second round.

On Sunday the consequence of that became clear with two difficult matches against TeamOrigin and Emirates Team New Zealand.

In the early race against the British team, helmsman Gavin Brady and his afterguard did some nice work early to build a lead on the first lap of the race course.



But on the second beat, a big split developed as we hit the left side of the race course, with Origin out to the right. As both boats tacked to converge again, a shift favoured the British and what had been a three boatlength lead was turned upside down.

The second race against the regatta leading Kiwi team was much closer, but BMW ORACLE trailed from the first cross. Although it was close at the finish, we never really threatened to make the pass on the short race course.



The guys were frustrated coming off the water today but will get right back at it tomorrow with matches against Artemis and Azzurra.

Here's today's race report from the team website.