Cup coverage never plain sailing

Yachting and television have never been a match-race made in heaven.

You need expert commentary and oceans of satellite-generated graphics to stop landlubbers being lulled to sleep by the wind and the waves.

You can only see so many tacks requiring furious on-board action for a lazy change of direction, and you can only get adrenalised so many times at the commentators' mention of an elusive wind shift, unless you are told and can see what it means to the race.

You also need close matches between the leading contenders.

Unfortunately, the return of the America's Cup challenger series this week has so far seen only the commentators holding their end up.

Admittedly it is early days. Too much wind on the Hauraki Gulf over the past two days - couldn't the boats be built to handle rougher and potentially more exciting conditions? - has seen only Tuesday's racing completed.

The first-day glitches included the crash of the Virtual Spectator graphics which make sense of the often confusing on-the-water camera angles.

Those graphics which did make it to air provided the clean, concise snapshots we have come to expect, plus, we are told, more realistic backdrops of land and sky.

The real problem is the system of determining which of each day's four races is featured live.

This comes from a random draw by the race organisers to ensure each syndicate gets the all-important sponsorship exposure on television twice during the round-robin.

First up we got the British versus Dennis Conner's New York Yacht Club challenge.

It turned out to be a good close race, but it did not have the wider interest of defending Louis Vuitton champion Prada from Italy up against the big-spending Oracle BMW Racing, complete with billionaire Larry Ellison on board.

The Virtual Spectator problems meant we got precious few updates of that and the other races.

Television New Zealand says it is only financially viable to cover one race on any day until the semifinals, when both matches will be covered simultaneously.

That leaves as the feature for today - wind permitting - a clash of the underdogs, Victory Challenge of Sweden and Le Defi of France.

The real interest lies elsewhere in the match-up between Russell Coutts' Alinghi and OneWorld from Seattle, both packed with New Zealanders, and Prada taking on Dennis Conner.

Unless the updates are more frequent and informative, it will be a long two hours watching the fluorescent green-hulled French and the Swedes do battle.

The races are covered in a highlights package, but you have to be a diehard fan to stay up to 11pm to watch.

The One Sport commentary team has the familiar faces and voices from the last challenge. Peter Montgomery, so far subdued and informative, is saving his Montgomeryisms for later; Peter Lester provides a nice blend of expertise in layman's language, and Glen Sowry's relaxed analysis of the graphics is probably a welcome break from his role as TVNZ spokesman.

A new addition is American Ed Baird, an insightful former Team New Zealand coach and Young America skipper, who replaces the sometimes testy Englishman Chris Law as Montgomery's expert offsider.

nzherald.co.nz/americascup

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