ALL4ONE vs Synergy. Image copyright Frank Socha/www.franksocha.com
by Stephanie Nadin
ALL4ONE lost in their semi-final against Synergy, and will sail tomorrow against Artemis in the "petite finale" for the 3rd place of the Louis Vuitton Trophy-La Maddalena.
The matches of the day:
As in the first semi-final yesterday where Emirates Team New Zealand won 2-1 against Artemis, there wasn't a lot of wind today on the race course of La Maddalena (7 to 8 knots of wind only), and that made the tacticians work really hard again.
A starboard tack start on the first race, on time at the pin, launched the Russian boat out to an early lead of 64 metres. However Synergy chose the wrong gate at the end of the first run. ALL4ONE accelerated away from the opposite gate to claim the advantaged left side and built a 30 second lead at the top. Both boats did their rounding and it was Synergy who reclaimed the lead to the finish.
ALL4ONE. Image copyright Frank Socha/www.franksocha.com
On the second match, ALL4ONE's early move to break clear of a dialup ended the team's hopes in the race and the semi-final. Seb Col got clear and sailed away but gybed returned to the line early on starboard. Synergy followed, and hooked and broke the collision wand on ALL4ONE's leeward quarter. The French-German team was over early in his efforts to wriggle clear and was forced to restart, carrying a penalty. Synergy romped away in a building breeze.
Olivier Douillard, Traveller: "the team improved a lot since the Louis Vuitton Trophy-Auckland, and we have identified some points in New Zealand that we corrected and improved here, but we now get to a level where all the small details are important, and we still need to work on coordination."
Carlo Castellano, Grinder: "today we paid for our mistakes, even if we came back really well in the first match, and that is sport. We made a step ahead in this competition, and we have to keep on working and sailing together to carry on improving as we did. We still have one race to go tomorrow, and we will work hard on this one."
Results Day 15
Semi-Final
SYNERGY Russian Sailing Team defeats ALL4ONE 2-0
FINAL
Emirates Team New Zealand races against Synergy (best of 5)
Synergy wins the first match
Round Robin results
ALL4ONE 6
Artemis 6
Emirates Team New Zealand 6
Mascalzone Latino 5
Synergy 5
Azzurra 4
TeamOrigin 4
Luna Rossa 3
BMW Oracle Racing 3
Aleph -2
ALL4ONE
Louis Vuitton Trophy
