TEAMORIGIN vs. Luna Rossa. Image copyright Ian Roman/TEAMORIGIN.
by Leslie Greenhalgh
TEAMORIGIN was back on the water today and took on the world class Italian team of Luna Rossa with Ed Baird on the helm, Torben Grael as tactician and Robert Scheidt as strategist. Marcus Hutchinson, TEAMORIGIN, was 18th man today and was linked up to the live commentary throughout the race – an added bonus for the fans following the race action live.
Marcus Hutchinson's race report:
With a relatively stable breeze of 12 knots, Ben Ainslie brought TEAMORIGIN into the start box from the port end in the team’s only match today. The first of the three remaining matches the British team has to sail in the Round Robin stage of the Louis Vuitton Trophy La Maddelena regatta was against Luna Rossa, the first time the pair have met on the water in over a year.
It was never clear over the course of the next four minutes which side of the beat would be dominant and so after a fairly long dial-up Ainslie chose to make a tight to leeward start and try and benefit from a slight line bias at the buoy end.
TEAMORIGIN vs. Luna Rossa. Image copyright Ian Roman/TEAMORIGIN.
Within 30 seconds of the start gun firing it became clear that the British team had started better and were pushing into a dominant position to leeward of Luna Rossa. This quickly resulted in the Italian boat being forced to tack away. TEAMORIGIN matched the tack and from a position to windward and slightly ahead benefitted from sailing into an increase in wind pressure from the left, and started to pull ahead. Half way up the beat Luna Rossa came back at the British boat and crossed behind by nearly three lengths. This allowed TEAMORIGIN to take up the right hand side and dominate the tactics for the rest of the beat.
Several tacks later TEAMORIGIN had got into a position to force Luna Rossa to make two extra tacks in the final approach to the top mark, resulting in a lead of 35 seconds at the turn.
With a stable breeze, a short course and a healthy first mark lead, all that was required to take the race win was consistent good crew work and boat handling and smart defensive tactics. All of these elements were delivered by the British team, and the final winning margin was 37 seconds.
TEAMORIGIN. Image copyright Ian Roman/TEAMORIGIN.
TEAMORIGIN quotes:
Chris Salthouse (Curly), Mainsheet for TEAMORIGIN, “A good start today, there was no obvious ‘must win’ side so we selected as best we could and started well to leeward, got a nice shift, from then on did a really nice job controlling them for the rest of the race. For us in this stage of the competition, every race is a must win and we are simply focusing on one race at a time.”
Julian Cressant, Mast man for TEAMORIGIN, “The guys at the back did a great job getting a good clean start, it was hard today tactically to chose one side or another, but we got away cleanly and quickly managed to have a 5 boat length lead, that made matters a lot easier at the front of the boat, calm and confident and really clear communication on board today.”
TEAMORIGIN. Image copyright Ian Roman/TEAMORIGIN.
Race Results Day Eight, Sat 29th May 2010, Round Robin One
Flight 17 : TEAMORIGIN beat Luna Rossa, 37s
Flight 6 : Azzurra beat Synergy, 15s
Currently underway:
Flight 23 : Azzurra v Artemis
Flight 18 : Synergy v Artemis
Flight 20: Emirates TNZ v ALL4ONE
Flight 19 : Mascalzone Latino v BMW ORACLE Racing
TEAMORIGIN. Image copyright Ian Roman/TEAMORIGIN.
Results to date (after race 2 of Sat 29th May)
ETNZ : 4 wins, 1 loss (1 re-sail to be done v BMWO)
Artemis: 4 wins, 1 loss
TEAMORIGIN : 4 wins, 3 losses
Synergy : 4 wins, 4 losses
Mascalzone latino : 4 wins*, 1 loss = 3 points (docked 1 pt)
ALL4ONE : 3 wins, 3 losses
Azzurra : 3 wins, 3 losses
Luna Rossa : 2 wins, 6 losses
BMW ORACLE Racing : 1 win, 5 losses (1 re-sail to be done v ETNZ)
Aleph : 2 wins*, 4 losses = -2 points
TEAMORIGIN
Louis Vuitton Trophy
