ALL4ONE crew gather in teh kite. Image copyright Frank Socha.
by Stephanie Nadin
Philippe Mourniac, ALL4ONE's Navigator, was right yesterday: wind and sun were finally here this morning in the "Baie des Anges" in Nice, and it was a wonderful racing day for the ACC boats of the Louis Vuitton Trophy.
The French-German team members had an intense sailing day, where they fought really hard, as they were always sailing very close to their opponents, which is the essence of match racing at this level.
ALL4ONE won its first point in its match against Artemis (delta: 25 seconds). The two teams offered a great race to the public, with a very tight regatta where the spectators held their breathing from the beginning till the end.
ALL4ONE team members managed to remain very close in this race, and to take the advantage as soon as they had the opportunity to do so. Tactics and good calls from the afterguard were keys to success, as well as very good manoeuvers from all the crew on board.
Then the team lost the second flight of the day against BMW Oracle Racing. The Americans took the left of the race course after the start, and they took advantage from the wind on this side, which was perfect to win this race.
The last possible point of today was lost against TeamOrigin after a very nice and tight race. ALL4ONE was late on the start line but did a really nice job coming back upwind, not much was missing (there was a 14 seconds' delta only at the finish line).
Jochen Schümann, Skipper, talks about today's racing : "first, we had a good race against Artemis because we came back from behind, so very good crew work and very good match racing from Sebastien Col, as we “killed” Artemis with good match racing! Then in our second match of the day against BMW Oracle Racing, we lost our start, and I think there was a chance that if we would have stretched a little longer to the coast line, we had a chance to win that race as we sailed well, but they were all the time ahead of us, and the missed opportunity never came back. The last race against TeamOrigin was the hardest work, so big congratulations to our crew work and the whole crew that worked really hard with two upwind legs with tacking duels. We did very well by getting closer and closer, but we couldn't pass. It was the same downwind, and in the end it was clear wind for TeamOrigin that we pushed really really hard, so well done, but no point unfortunately."
Racing continues tomorrow with two races for ALL4ONE against TFS Pages Jaunes and Russian team Synergy.
Round Robin 1 Pairing list for 11/11/09 :
ETNZ (75) vs Artemis (93)
ALL4ONE (99) vs TFS Pages Jaunes (90)
Azzurra (93) vs Synergy (75)
BMW Oracle Racing (90) vs TeamOrigin (99)
ALL4ONE (93) vs Synergy (75)
Azzurra (90) vs TFS Pages Jaunes (99)
ETNZ (75) vs BMW Oracle Racing (93)
Artemis (90) vs TeamOrigin (99)
ALL4ONE
Louis Vuitton Trophy
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