With Team Principal Larry Ellison riding as the 6th crewmember, ORACLE Racing Spithill won the first race by more than 1 minute and then staged a come-from-behind victory in the second to advance to its second ACWS match racing championship.
Ellison was particularly proud of the crew led by skipper Jimmy Spithill.
“I always prefer it when Jimmy’s beating someone other than me,” said Ellison. “The guys sailed well today and Jimmy did a phenomenal job.”
“We sailed well today, we sailed well tactically,” said wingsail trimmer Dirk de Ridder, who was aboard when ORACLE Racing Spithill defeated Emirates Team New Zealand to win the ACWS Cascais match racing championship in August.
ORACLE Racing Spithill, which also includes tactician John Kostecki, trimmer Joe Newton and bowman Piet van Nieuwenhuijzen, nailed the start of the first race while Team New Zealand had to slow after starting too early.
The race was even soon thereafter when both crews began the first upwind leg. But ORACLE Racing Spithill regained control about halfway up the leg and then extended to a 69-second victory by the finish.
“They came back at us a bit in that first race, but JK (Kostecki) kept his cool and we walked away with it a little bit from there,” said Newton.
Emirates Team New Zealand had the better start in the second race and held the lead beginning the first upwind leg, Leg 3 of the seven-leg racecourse.
ORACLE Racing Spithill had followed Team New Zealand around the same leeward gate mark, but was first to tack away and a tacking duel soon followed. Spithill was particularly aggressive in the duel, wanting to get to the left side. It showed that AC45 catamarans can be pushed hard.
“If you look at the gains and losses, a heavy V5 ACC sloop tacks pretty well but the AC45 accelerates faster so the net’s probably not that different,” said Newton, whose heart rate jumps to about 200 in such a duel.
By the fourth tack ORACLE Racing Spithill was able to get to the left side of Emirates Team New Zealand, which continued to the right-hand side of the racecourse. With the separation more than 530 meters, Team New Zealand seemed to sail into lighter winds while ORACLE Racing Spithill had a nice lane of breeze. With its port hull flying ORACLE Racing Spithill moved into the lead and held on to win the match.
“It was quite shifty and the wind was pretty far right. We didn’t think it would go any farther right,” said Kostecki, who felt comfortable in the shifty stuff. “Once we got the split left we saw up the track that the wind was going left. We adjusted our mode to stay in the left pressure and saw the Kiwis were quite light on the right and it ended up paying off for us.”
ORACLE Racing Spithill is flying new headsails at this regatta, designed more for the light winds of San Diego Bay. The crew is happy with its speed and boathandling, but de Ridder pointed to the communication as being the more important improvement.
“We’re not talking more, we’re yelling less,” said de Ridder laughing. “It’s all about creating a picture and taking the good and the bad from that picture. We seemed to do that today better than in the past.”
Tomorrow’s final against Energy Team is a best-of-three match with racing scheduled to start at 1:10 PST