It could be "all she wrote" for the Americans tomorrow, or the next day or the next. Down 4-1 today, they MUST win the next 4 matches against Luna Rossa or they go home. They have not yet led on a single leg or won a single start. I don't know what happened, they looked so good during the last round and they have a big budget, on paper they have quite a bit of tallent, but they have been unable to get ahead and stay there. And James Spithill has been outstanding starting Luna Rossa.

You can see the racing live on Versus TV (the old OLN channel) Sunday morning starting at 08:30 east coast, and they replay it at 4:30 pm.

Good Luck to team USA but it doesn't look good for them. Team Emirates New Zealand has been outstanding and will be a good match for Luna Rossa. That round should be very exciting.

Highlight clips are posted on http://www.versus.com/americascup

Half boats?
<img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Very expensive half boats, going around in circles, slowly. But at least there's rarely a lead change... <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

How do you say "sand bagged" in Italian?

Ariva derchi?

Hardly sandbagging. They've replaced their starting skipper. Sounds more like desperate to me.

Well, it's official, Team America is OUT of the America's Cup. Congratulations to Luna Rossa, great job. And the Spanish team won today to stay in it for a while longer. Good racing today. Next match is on Tuesday, TNZ vs. Spain.

I watched as much of it as I could on TV.... I swear, some of the mistakes and decisions that Chris Dickson made during prestarts really looked like a rookie sailor. He had Spithill forced over the line and let him win the start???

Another sad year in the US story of Americas cup racing.

Actually talking a/b speed, check out their upwind performance, they're pretty quick in the medium stuff. If it were I20 vs. AC2007 boats, I bet they would romp up hill but get beaten downwind.

I too am a little perplexed about the pre-start skills shown by BMW. They obviously put a ton of resources in developing the boat and team...but you think you would take your skippers/tacticians and challenge them to do nothing less than "write the book" on starting a match race.

The other thing I don't understand the reasoning is why they designate that one team enter the box from the left and the other enter from the right. I guess I've just missed that in other match racing starts - but why not just say "hey, the sequence starts now, start starting" (in the same way we do fleet racing). It just seems that the entire starting process and spin-up is so predictable...which also leads me to wonder how you can spend so much time preparing the entire campaign but mess up such a predictable sequence so badly.

Jake, I agree about the starts, even though they each take turns coming in from the left and right, they always do the exact same thing, come at each other, round up and luff to a standstill (actaully started drifting backwards today!) then bear away and the game begins. Still, I saw plenty of times when the advantage was given away by all teams.

One of the comentators made a very good point about Chris Dickson. He said Chris had not spent nearly as much time doing the match racing tours that all the other skippers had. He had spent too much time being -everything- on BMW Oracle. When one guy spends too much time trying to run the entire campaign, I think his brain is fried when it comes to just starting the race. He lost every start he had. Un-be-frigg'n-lieveable.

I had very high hopes for BMW Oracle, with all the money and time they had invested, I figured they were in the semi's for sure. But I have a new respect for James Spithill and the Italian team, they looked very good. Great race by the Spainiards today too. Should be a good one on Tuesday as well, I hope.

Even though they are on half a boat, I find it facinating, the starts and the crew work at the roundings, as well as the tactical decisions.

That's it! The Italians sure sand bagged Larry.

After all the money and effort...could it be that it actually boils down to sailing skill?

If they did not; the match racing would start the moment they left the dock !

Seriously, IIRC from the times we did match racing(and the way it was explainjed to us); is was to clearly define the start of the game, and clearly define the port / stbd rights at the start of the build up. It also allows the port and stbd boats to decide if they want to attack or not.

Well, they made a change to the boat just before the semi finals (rudder?) and they went from monster downwind speed to equal with the fleet. From what they said today, that was to facilitate more steerage during the prestart... but if you're going to blow the prestart (and you had been putting a beating on down wind) wouldn't you want to stay with your strength?

I think the boats this year have been the most even in terms of speed compared to previous years. Tactics seemed to have been a much bigger part. Todays start was better (a bit late/slow), however they wanted the right and got it. Sadly, I think this change to the afterguard came too late. Not to mention today was the first day all week that the left paid. They rolled the dice, played the odds... and lost.

And what do we learn from this boys ?

Spending money is not a good way to win races.

Practice and careful planning is far more efficient in this.

Wouter

That commentator is probably right. Chris Dickson is the CEO of the team. He does all of the hiring for the team and seems to spend a lot of time dealing with the business side of their team. When I was over there I practiced with both BMWO and Victory Challenge and VC's practice was more like an actual race with more of a focus on sailing and team work. BMW Oracle's practice was focused more on equipment and rig tuning. Probably why a team with no money like VC got as far as they did and BMWO couldn't get out of the semis. All that money and it still comes down to good old fashioned skill.

This reminds me of another American team from the past... TDC/Stars and Stripes.

We can only hope that Larry Ellison decides to stick with it. They were a VERY formidable team that was beaten by their few weaknesses.

Larry has plenty of money. He built a house for $120 million a few years ago in Woodside.

Quick get the guy from "Wind"! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

They should have brought out the Whomper. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />