As I saw it: America's Cup from a distance

2:55 AM Fri 19 Feb 2010 GMT

'Day 7 - Race 2
GGYC wins the 33rd America's Cup Match
Alinghi 5 and USA 17' Guido Trombetta/Team Alinghi

The 3third America's Cup ended as it should have: on the water and won by a superior organization.

The BMW Oracle sailing professionals outperformed and outsmarted those on Alinghi. The Oracle engineers and designers outthought and outdared their rival teams. Rumor has it that they even outspent them. How else to achieve perfection?

To those who watched the event on the internet, BMW Oracle's superiority was clear almost instantly. In Race 1 (20-mile windward-leeward), Spithill and his team showed what match racing was all about, roaring into the starting box on starboard tack to catch Alinghi, on port, completely unprepared. Alinghi was penalized for failure to give way to the starboard tack boat.

BMW Oracle's subsequent stalling over the line was a definite error, only made up for by the speed and efficiency of the wing sail. However, the penalty that Alinghi incurred would have probably caused them to lose the race, even if they had stayed ahead by the narrow margin they achieved at the start. As it turned out Oracle was simply the faster boat: they won by 15 minutes.

In Race 2 inexperience or ineptitude caused the second self-inflicted penalty by Alinghi, this time for being caught in the starting box after the five-minute signal. Later they stalled out in the box, enabling BMW Oracle to leave comfortably ahead at the gun, heading for the left hand side of the course, a 39-mile triangular (windward-reach-reach).

Alinghi enjoyed a period of domination on the right hand side, a lead of up to 600 metres, but that all changed when the boats reached the vicinity of the lay line to the windward mark. Here, BMW Oracle's experts judged their tack to perfection, one of the best calls in the whole regatta.

They allowed Alinghi, on starboard, to pass ahead and then simply lit out for the mark with room to spare. Alinghi belatedly tacked to windward of BMW Oracle but by then the race was all but over: BMW Oracle's superior speed off the wind was apparent during the first race and no one was going to catch her going downhill this time. Winning margin: five and a half minutes.

To an observer on americascup.com the differences on the racecourse were all too apparent. True, the wing sail was the most powerful weapon in the contest, but Alinghi simply did not have as competent a crew on board as BMW Oracle. The match racing expertise of Spithill, Kostecki and, latterly, Coutts was an uneven match for the crew of Alinghi. They were simply too sharp, witness the start box debacles that Alinghi pulled on herself.

In past America's Cups, failures have been assigned to 'two feet behind the wheel' and this seems to be true here, in the 3third.

BMW Oracle and Alinghi Race America's Cup 2010 - BMW Oracle Racing &copy Photo Gilles Martin-Raget Click Here to view large photo

The failure of Bertarelli to sail his boat consistently, with the weather hull flying, was all too obvious in Race 1 compared to Spithill's steady performance. This incompetence was glaringly obvious in Race 2 when Frenchman Loick Peyron, a seasoned multihull sailor, was on the helm on the upwind leg.

During his brief tenure Alinghi performed beautifully and took the lead for the first time in the event with the weather hull flying consistently.

We don't know who called the tack on Alinghi at the weather mark, but it is conceivable she could have tacked earlier and forced BMW Oracle away. But that is all speculation because once BMW Oracle rounded ahead the writing was on the wall: the Cup was going to go back to America.

Bio note: David Strickland is a freelance boating writer and former magazine editor. He was for many years a yacht delivery captain and has had racing experience in England and the Caribbean. He lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

by David Strickland