Emirates team NZ takes crucial win over BMW Oracle Racing

12:01 AM Sat 31 Jan 2009 GMT

'Dean Barker and afterguard on Emirates Team NZ - Louis Vuitton Pacific Series' Richard Gladwell Click Here to view large photo

After a close fought prestart, Emirates Team New Zealand, skippered by Dean Barker opted for the right hand side of the course, which he turned into a small 14 second advantage around the weather mark.

Sailing in a 10-15 kt southwesterly breeze, Barker set up to leeward of BMW Oracle Racing helmed by Russell Coutts, in attempt to keep his air clear of the attacking stern boat.

He was iniatially successful in this move, but as they approached the the bottom mark for the first time Emirates Team NZ was positioned to leeward with her lead of over 70 metres having shrunk to just over 10 metres, possibly due to Coutts sailing with more wind pressure.

Both rounded the marks at almost the same time with the margin being recorded at 2 seconds or a lead of just a few metres in favour of Emirates Team NZ.

The southwesterly breeze oscillated slightly and each time the lead changed. Effectively it was an even race as they progressed up the third leg of the four leg race.

BMW Oracle took the left hand side of the course and started to stack up on the hip of Team New Zealand, lifting off to a lead of over 20 metres or almost a boatlength.as the boats sailed on around 200 metres apart, with Team New Zealand just laying North head.

As they moved up the Waitemata harbour the margin started to swung back towards Team New Zealand. At the cross Team New Zealanbd came in holding right of way and Oracle decided to dip, dropping a lot of their margin

At the start of the next tack the margin was out to 60 metres in favour of Team NZ, and they crossed Oracle easily with a margin of over 100 metres.

After an exchange of tacks, Emirates Team New Zealand began to ease away working out to a 130 metre margin at the point where the two were positioned almost dead downwind of the leeward mark - allowing Barker to cross to either side to cover Coutts.

As the closed in on the port layline , Barker overstood slightly with a lead of 100 metres which had emanated from calling one windshift halfway up the beat and a margin of 22 seconds - a 20 second gain froim tnhe previous mark.

With soinnskers set and Team New Zealand taking advantage of the increased boatspeed, her lead had stretched to around 1509 metres on the water, and a position from which it would have been hard to lose.

After a couple of gybes the margin stretched another 25 metres to 175 metres or seven boatlengths or a margin of 27 seconds at the finish.

Later it was disclosed that one of the mainsail battens had broken aboard BMW Oracle racing which could have impacted their performance.

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com

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Emirates team NZ takes crucial win over BMW Oracle Racing

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