Monday 16 November 2009

LVT: Tough Day at the Office for ALL4ONE


Foredeck work on board ALL4ONE. Image copyright Frank Socha.

by Stephanie Nadin

ALL4ONE only had one match to sail on its programme today against Artemis, the Swedish team that ALL4ONE had beaten in the first Round Robin. This time, Artemis won the point.

Artemis won after completing a penalty turn on the finish line in light winds. ALL4ONE had gotten the penalty on the Swedish team on the first windward leg, getting its bow to leeward on port tack and luffing. Artemis, however, led at all three mark roundings and began the run to the finish with a 1:04 advantage. It was going to be tenuous whether Artemis could complete the turn and cross the line in the lead as the wind was dying and only blowing about 4 knots. But ALL4ONE blew a jibe to starboard when the spinnaker twisted. The crew had to lower the sail to remove the twist and Artemis turned its 150-metre lead into more than 600 metres. ALL4ONE was scored DNF when it failed to finish within 5 minutes of Artemis.


ALL4ONE trails Artemis. Image copyright Frank Socha.

Jochen Schümann, Skipper and Strategist: “today was a tough day again. We had flight number 2, which under these conditions is usually the worst one. Meaning that we have some winds from the mountains in the morning, and then during the morning hours it's basically dying, and changing into gradient breeze. So we are sailing in a convergence of breezes.

We had a very good start with a very good execution from Sebastien Col, and after some tacks, Artemis gained control, but ended up with a penalty, which should have been a red flag, meaning they should have done their penalty turn straight away. But it was not the case, so the whole game changed from there. They gained 4 lengths within that situation, sailing on top of us and then stretching. We sailed in the light breeze during the up and down, where the leading boat is a little bit longer in the “old breeze”, and we were a little bit earlier in the “dying breeze”. So that stretched more and more, and in the end Artemis could do their penalty in front of the line before crossing the finish line.

The format we have now doesn't have any effects on the results anyway. But the positive out of our 3 last matches in the Round Robin 2 is that we had 3 perfect starts. Our training develops well at the moment for the whole team, and especially the 3 starts which were all under nice control. Our weakness was the starts in the first round, where we unfortunately had only 2 points on our score board. We're sailing a lot stronger at the moment. So let's see for tomorrow, as we may have a tough match with TeamOrigin.”

ALL4ONE will sail tomorrow its last race of Round Robin 2 against TeamOrigin.

FLEET STANDINGS (Through Round 2: Flight 5)

1) Emirates Team New Zealand, 9-1
2) Team Origin, 7-3
3) Azzurra, 6-3
4) Synergy Russian Sailing Team, 5-4
5) Artemis, 4-5
6) BMW Oracle Racing, 3-6
7) ALL4ONE, 3-7
8) TFS-Pages Jaunes, 1-9

Round Robin 2 Pairing list for 16/11/09:

Flight 6, Flight 8 and first match of Flight 7 (the second match will be sailed on Tuesday 17)

BMW Oracle Racing vs Azzurra
TeamOrigin vs ALL4ONE
Azzurra vs Synergy
Artemis vs TFS PagesJaunes
BMW Oracle Racing vs Artemis

ALL4ONE
Louis Vuitton Trophy

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