Monday, June 04, 2007

"Luna Rossa" Hopes Sinking, Now Down 3-0 in Louis Vuitton Cup Final

The ANNOTICO Report

 

New Zealand won the third race with a 1min 38sec margin.

 

"Luna Rossa" may have the better tactician and an equal or better crew, BUT it appears that the Kiwis have the faster boat. 

 

The Italians hope for a replay of 1992, when  Il Moro di Venezia came back from 4-1 down against the New Zealand Challenge,

 

 

Hopes Sink for Italians

 

Telegraph.co.uk
By Tim Jeffrey  

June 4, 2007

The Italians will not have abandoned all hope but they will be spending today's rest day of the Louis Vuitton Cup final wondering just where reviving reinforcements might come from as Emirates Team New Zealand has them in a completely convincing 3-0 stranglehold in the best-of-nine race series.

Reality hit Luna Rossa head-on in race three yesterday. Helmsman James Spithill won the start, had ITA 94 half a boat length ahead and wound-up to maximum only to experience the harsh truth that the New Zealand boat was faster.

Italy's advantage was gone in four minutes as NZL 92 gained all the way around the track - 40sec, 48sec, 1min 13sec - until a 1min 38sec margin at the finish which must have seemed like a chasm.

In the first two races there was still room to question the New Zealand boat's superiority. Friday's opening race had a progressive right-hand windshift on the opening leg to benefit NZL 92 more than ITA 94. In the pre-start on Saturday, Spithill wriggled and writhed to make sure the Italian crew got the right-hand side and once clamped to windward of the New Zealand boat in a controlling position off the start line his tactician Torben Grael called for Spithill to tack away to the right.

Given the post-race analysis showed a consensus that the right side of the course was generally favoured Grael cannot be faulted for his call, though he could be accountable for releasing NZL 92 from Italian grip too easily.

Race three, however, was a comprehensive defeat and one meted out by a Kiwi boat and crew that matches or exceeds it in all departments.

"It's a possibility," commented pitman Barry McKay when pressed to say that NZL 92 had an edge. McKay is one of the deeply determined Kiwis who populate the heart of the TNZ and who hate hyperbole.

The New Zealanders' win-loss record has now advanced to 25-5 and save Spithill winning two of the three starts so far, the Kiwis have been able to race in the style that fits their game best.

The reverse is true with Luna Rossa. Strategist Ben Durham was assuredly correct when he said the Italians hadn't sailed at their best, but he was wrong in saying they needed to get off the start line better; a sign his team doesn't have answers for the questions posed by TNZ.

The wider-held hope that this final will be a long series looks as if it will be unfulfilled. At this stage in the trials teams have little or nothing extra to give. Where there has been a turnaround in the past, such as Il Moro di Venezia coming back from 4-1 down in 1992 against the New Zealand Challenge, other factors have intervened.

Then a controversial jury decision to ban the Kiwis' bowsprit and annul one of their wins was New Zealand's banana skin. There is no sign of one here.

 

The ANNOTICO Reports Can be Viewed and are Fully Archived at:

Italia USA: http://www.ItaliaUSA.com (Formerly Italy at St Louis)

 

The ANNOTICO Reports Can be Viewed at

 

Annotico Email: annotico@earthlink.net