There were thrills, spills, breakages and plenty of action in the Trapani Louis Vuitton Act 8 off Sicily on Monday where the 12 teams from 10 nations across five continents entered for the America’s Cup in 2007 battled for supremacy on the penultimate day of match racing.
Squalls bringing rain, flashes of lightning and gusty winds of more than 20 knots whipped the Mediterranean Sea into a frenzy and the tough conditions wreaked havoc on the teams. South Africa’s Team Shosholoza was the first to fall in the first match of the day against the Cup defender, the Swiss Alinghi, when mainsail problems prevented her from starting and she was disqualified.
Team Shosholoza still holds eighth place overall despite two losses on Monday against Alinghi and later to the Swedish Victory Challenge. But Tuesday will be a crucial final day when she comes up against Italy’s +39 Challenge and China Team as she is currently sharing this personal best spot with United Internet Team Germany and Italy’s +39 Challenge.
Mainsail problems were the reason for Team Shosholoza‘s disqualification against Alinghi in the first race on Monday just as race commentators launched into a complimentary preamble on South Africa’s improved performance in Italy.
Bowmen Ken Venn of Cape Town and Golden Mgedeza of KwaThema, Springs, could be seen at the top of Shosholoza‘s vast, 35m mast frantically trying to sort out the problem in 20-knot winds and a rolling sea as Alinghi swept into the pre-start, ready for battle.
But the South Africans remained under tow with their huge 220-square-metre mainsail stubbornly refusing to go up. The six-minute deadline for entering the pre-start area expired for Shosholoza and Alinghi did a courtesy cross of the start line. The South Africans were slapped with a disqualification, while Alinghi took an easy point from their no-show.
Speaking from the race course where the team were sitting out the rain waiting for their next race on Tuesday against Sweden’s Victory Challenge, sailing manager Paul Standbridge said a battern had ripped through the mainsail.
”It was impossible to fix it in time to race Alinghi. It’s ok now and we’ll see if we can take another win off Victory Challenge,” said Standbridge, referring to South Africa’s first-ever win in an America’s Cup event in Sweden last month.
In Shosholoza‘s second match of the day against Victory Challenge, the South African’s had the Swedes tied up in knots at the pre-start and hit the start line at speed a good half-a-boat length ahead.
Going up the beat, a big right-hand wind shift paid dividends for Shosholoza, which was two boat-lengths ahead of the Swedes at the first cross, but then things started falling apart for the South Africans as they opted for the left-hand side of the course and the Swedes managed to squeeze across to the right.
The two challengers appeared to have similar boat speed, but the superior skill of Sweden’s Magnus Holmberg, a Swedish Match Tour finalist, in picking his way through the increasingly tricky sea conditions brought the Swedes a lead that the South Africans struggled unsuccessfully to break. — Sapa