LVPS: No Gain Only Risk for Alinghi Against Emirates Team New Zealand

by Daphne Morgan-Barnicoat

Alinghi has chosen not to race Match 5 of Day 3 of the Round Robin 2 against Emirates Team New Zealand. The way the event is structured races against TNZ don’t count in Round Robin 2, however hard contact penalties can result in a deduction of points [as in the BMW Oracle vs. TeamOrigin match on 6 Feb]. With a competitive elimination round coming up in the next few days Alinghi had everything to lose and nothing to gain in racing the home team Emirates Team New Zealand.

Ed Baird, Alinghi helmsman, explains the decision: “We are loving this event, the racing has been great and the summer conditions have been fantastic. It is great that we can all be back on the water together again. Normally we would jump at the chance to sail against Team New Zealand as we have so many times in the past, so we are sorry to have to make this difficult strategic choice.

“The reality is that there is no upside for us and only bad things that can happen if we have any kind of incident or contact. As a group we talked this through and decided that it didn’t make sense to take that risk after yesterday’s docking of points to both BMW Oracle Racing and TeamOrigin. It’s clear that the event is serious about avoiding close incidents and if we are going to take a risk, it’s going to be in a race that counts.”

We look forward to the match against BMW Oracle Racing tomorrow and to continuing this event.

Alinghi