In a bit of a surprise move, Seattle's OneWorld Challenge chose Team Dennis Connor as their opponent for the "last chance" round, officially known as the Quarter Final Repachage of the Louis Vuitton. This leaves Sweden's Victory Challenge to race against Prada's Luna Rosa, the other loser from the top group.
As the highest seeded yacht, OneWorld had its choice of opponents from the winner's in the lower group. It has sailed well against both Stars&Stripes and Victory Challenge, but Stars&Stripes continued to show great improvement in her elimination of GBR Challenge 4-1, while Victory wasn't really tested, easily taking their series with the French boat Le Defi 4-1.
So why would they choose the "hot" boat coming out of the Quarter Finals? "We feel we can beat any of the teams and we know these guys well." said OneWorld Executive Director Bob Ratliffe.
True, OneWorld has won in their previous encounters with Star&Stripes but it was a much faster boat that dispatched GBR. "We're looking forward to good racing with OneWorld," said Bill Trenkle, president of Team Dennis Conner and the spinnaker trimmer on Stars&Stripes. "We've only raced the Seattle boat twice and although we lost those two races, Stars&Stripes has lifted its game a lot since then."
As it seems, so have the other teams since the preliminary racing of Round Robins 1 and 2.
Of the top four favored boats going into Round Robin 1, OneWorld seemed to dominate. She waltzed through the first round with aggressive and smart starts and showing boatspeed second to none. Only Alinghi even looked close, losing only to OneWorld in her first seven races. Oracle and Prada were obviously struggling, and both boats reacted quickly to save their challenges.
From the beginning of Oracle's campaign, Larry Ellison's presence loomed large over the crew. He has some impressive sailing credentials to his name but nothing to compare with the accomplishments of most crewmembers and quite out of the match racing class of his afterguard John Cutler and Peter Holmberg, not to mention an America's Cup winning skipper he'd put on the beach, Chris Dickson. After the first defeats Holmberg was out and Ellison reinstated Chris Dickson. A superb sailor but challenging to work with, he had basically been voted "off the island" by the crew before the Louis Vuitton. His return ruffled some feathers but was definitely an improvement. Ironically, one of the first things Dickson did was to oust Ellison and bring back Holmberg. Amazingly, with all this upheaval, the boat started winning, and by the end of Round Robin 2 was ranked second for the Quarter Finals.
The other struggling favorite, Prada, made some changes of their own. Quickly identifying their problems as design flaws in the boat, designer Doug Peterson was fired, the boat modified, and, like Oracle, began to show improvement out on the course, finishing fourth in the rankings after the first two rounds.
Meanwhile, OneWorld was having a bit more difficulty. She was still winning her share of races, but not all. It seemed that the other boats were dialing in and catching up. She went into the Quarter Finals ranked third.
As the number one ranked boat, Alinghi showed she still had a lot of respect for OneWorld, choosing to race against Prada in the Quarter Finals. This would be a rematch of the last America's Cup skippers, Russell Coutt's, former team New Zealand, and Francesco de Angelis and Prada. Coutt's continued his dominance over de Angelis by sweeping the series 4-0. The competition was close, with races two and three decided by only eight seconds difference. However, Prada syndicate head Berrelli had seen enough and once again leaped in. In an unprecedented action, the Italians forfeited the fourth race to give them time to "make some adjustments." Prada had another boat and another bow on the beach, so back to the shop. When Prada faces Victory Challenge in the QF Repachage she'll have a new bow. The Italians are nothing if not dramatic.
The Swedish Victory Challenge had her moments during the first two rounds, but, unfortunately for her, wasn't really pushed by the French in the Quarter Finals. She'll have to get in gear early against the battle hardened Prada team in the Repachage.
With Alinghi racing Prada in the Quarter Finals, that left OneWorld paired with Oracle. OneWorld made the decision to use their other boat US 67 in the Quarter Finals. They had made some adjustments to the other boat between RR1 and RR2 and were not satisfied with the results.
Although the first two races were close, it was obvious Oracle was a much different boat with Dickson on board. He challenged OneWorld's Gilmour and Spithill and seemed to gain the advantage on every start. When OneWorld would lay a trap, using the strange but effective sailing backward technique, Oracle accelerated away before OneWorld could get into a controlling position.
During the preliminaries, Oracle seemed to have a narrow wind range, her narrow hull and shorter sail plan performing best in the higher ranges. Unfortunately, for OneWorld, much of the Quarter Finals were sailed in that higher wind range, but even when it dropped Oracle looked to have a speed advantage going up and down wind.
Needless to say, Oracle's sweep of OneWorld in four straight was a shocker, leaving OneWorld to look for solutions. Skipper Peter Gilmour didn't sail the final race against Oracle, presumedly to test out some new afterguard combinations.
One thing is for certain, OneWorld needs to come out strong against Stars&Stripes, a team that, as Skipper Ken Read says is "getting more comfortable with the boat." Stars&Stripes was so dominant on her starts that GBR brought in Ian Walker to try and counter, but he was soundly out maneuvered. Stars&Stripes crossed the start line of the fourth race with a two boat length lead against the doomed Brits.
Will OneWorld change boats to try and capture their former brilliance? Will the afterguard regain its starting advantage? By the time you read this all these questions will be answered, and we're hoping the answers are - yes.
Quarter Finals Repachage racing begins November 23 and goes through November 30 (dates one day earlier in the U.S.) and can be seen on the Outdoor Life Network, OLN, at 6:00 PM.
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Louis Vuitton Cup
America's Cup
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The America's Cup, first awarded to its namesake, the schooner America, in the mid-19th century, is now the most sought-after trophy in sailboat racing.
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The America's Cup
OneWorld crosses the line 10 seconds ahead of Alinghi in battle of the unbeatens.
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Charlie McKee - Tactician
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