Swiss challenger Alinghi gained their fourth point in four outings in Louis Vuitton Cup racing this afternoon - but opponents GBR Challenge have lodged a protest.
An exciting pre-start saw a split start, with Andy Beadsworth, steering Wight Lightning GBR-70, fighting for the pin-end, while Russell Coutts, on Alinghi SUI-64, madea late switch for the Committee Boat end.
With a big shower cloud passing to the north of the race course, giving a persistent right-hand shift, Alinghi, on the favoured side, was able to make a huge gain to lead by 1.42 at the first mark.
Wight Lightning was on the outside of the shift and ended up sailing the first beat without having to tack.
"I was up the mast the whole race looking for the breeze," said Alinghi mainsail traveller trimmer Dean Phipps.
"There were big puffs out there and quite tricky trying to stay in the right shift. We thought it would settle in direction, but it shifted about 40 degrees, which was more than expected. In the pre-start we wanted the right, and the breeze shifted and we caught the lift."
As the wind continued to shift, then drop, the Race Officer struggled to reconfigure the course and had to lay the leeward mark close to Orarapa Island.
Alinghi was able to extend in the light conditions to nearly a mile ahead and just made it across the finish line less than two minutes before the leg time-limit expired.
"Sailing around the island today was straightforward," said Phipps, "but we thought the English would be good at it since they had to sail around the Isle of Wight in the first America's Cup. It was a bit of history for us out there."
Squalls streaking across the Hauraki Gulf meant a two-hour postponement before racing began on the shortened four-leg courses.
Once racing got underway, frustration soon set in as the wind died and massive wind shifts gave fits to tacticians, sailors and Race Officers alike.
Alinghi and GBR had to round the committee boat rather than a proper mark and GBR's protest deals with this issue.
