Louis Vuitton Trophy-La Maddalena

La Maddalena, Sardinia

Artemis was first up today against America’s Cup winner BMW Oracle. The conditions were 15 knots from the west and a perfectly sunny day. Terry Hutchinson got a great start shutting out James Spithill at the committee boat. I was reluctant to give the American’s much rope to play with in the very shifty conditions. Therefore we never got very far ahead…maximum lead was 2 boat lengths. The race was toe to toe all the way around until the last run when BMW Oracle gybed away while trailing and we let them go as we had the preferred side. We won the race by 15 seconds. It was great to get our third win and nice to win a tight one.

In other action, the Russian team Synergy beat Prada, then Prada rebounded to beat Team New Zealand in a close battle. The French team Aleph caused a major incident in their race with Azzurra. The French were disqualified as there is significant damage to both boats. Finally, the British Team Origin beat All4One by just 5 seconds in a very tight race.

Artemis heads the scoreboard with 3 wins from 3 starts.

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