OneWorld comfortably beat Prada by 2m 32s this afternoon to take a 4-1 lead in their semifinal challenger series for the America's Cup.
Prada, the defending Louis Vuitton Cup holders, will be eliminated from the regatta if they lose one more race.
OneWorld needs to win five races in what would ordinarilyhave been a best-of-seven series, as a result of being assessed a one-point penalty for possessing other teams' design information.
The Italians' loss this afternoon was the second of the day to OneWorld. This morning they trailed the Americans by 58 seconds.
This afternoon, disaster struck ITA-74 at the first leeward mark of the shortened four-leg race. A clumsy spinnaker drop sent the chute over the side where it was torn as the crew struggled to get it back aboard.
Prada was in trouble well before then, however. Crossing the start line just 1 second behind USA-67, the Italian boat had dropped to 32 seconds behind at the first mark.
Even on the run, ITA-74 lost ground, rounding mark number two 50 seconds behind. The botched spinnaker drop then set them back by 1m 51s at the 3rd mark.
James Spithill, at the helm of USA-76, barely needed to look over his shoulder as OneWorld cruised home with a massive winning delta of 2m 32s.
Today's races were shortened from six legs to four in order to make up time after 3 days on which races were abandoned due to high winds.
The semifinal repechage, which begins on Friday, will pit the winner of the OneWorld versus Prada series against San Francisco-based Oracle BMW.
The Swiss team Alinghi has already secured one of the places in the Louis Vuitton Cup final, a best-of-nine series which starts on January 11.
