Teams pray for friendly breeze

By JULIE ASH

The much-awaited clash between heavyweights Alinghi and OneWorld will be the feature of today's racing in the Louis Vuitton Challenger series - wind gods permitting.

The pair were scheduled to meet yesterday but strong winds meant all races were postponed until today.

The race committee canned yesterday's programme just after midday when the wind speed averaged 22 knots and showed no sign of abating.

For racing to start, the wind must average between 7 and 19 knots.

Principal race officer Peter Reggio said he was not surprised at the postponement on just the second day of racing.

"When you come here you expect this type of thing," he said.

Even though the races have been rescheduled, regatta organisers were last night predicting similar conditions today, with strong westerlies between 19 and 24 knots.

Five days are set aside as reserve days in the first round.

The first reserve day is Sunday, which is now likely to be used for racing.

The first match today on Course Romeo pits Team Dennis Conner against defending Louis Vuitton Cup champions Prada.

Rumours have been circulating that things are not happy in the Prada camp after their loss to Larry Ellison's Oracle BMW Racing on the first day.

Yesterday's buzz was that New Zealand helmsman Gavin Brady had been fired from the syndicate.

But Prada said Brady was still part of the team, although his contract is being renegotiated.

The second match on that course has OneWorld Challenge against Alinghi. Both secured easy victories on the first day.

Alinghi beat French challengers Le Defi Areva by 4m 48s, while OneWorld finished more than five minutes ahead of the second Italian challenge, Mascalzone Latino.

Alinghi had the better of OneWorld in the informal races leading up to the series, but the Seattle-based syndicate were impressive on the first day.

Alinghi strategist Murray Jones, who must watch his team from a tender as he is still recovering from a broken ankle, said his team were happy that they were on-track.

"But there are always things to fine-tune."

After just a day's racing, he said it was hard to take too much from the other teams' performances.

"The boats are quite different in appearance and people have gone in slightly different directions, but there is not that much difference in the performances," said Jones.

Rather than watching opponents in action out on the water, a lot of information could be obtained from the animated race program Virtual Spectator, he said.

"That will be a good source of true performance."

Jones hopes to be fit for the second round robin.

"I have made a lot of progress in the last week, but I have only been off the crutches three or four days, so it is quite a big step from crutches to running around a boat leaning at 30 degrees.

"Between the rounds, I will test myself out and see how I go.

"Obviously if it is not right and I can't do my job as well as someone else could, I won't do it."

On course Juliet today, Oracle are scheduled to face Vincenzo Onorato's Mascalzone Latino.

Peter Holmberg guided USA-76, Oracle's second boat, to a solid 42-second victory over Prada in their opening match.

USA-76 gained 1m 18s on the three beats, while their Italian rivals gained 34 seconds on the runs.

The final match of the day pairs Le Defi Areva against Sweden's Victory Challenge.

After a bye on the first day and with yesterday's postponement, the Swedish team will be anxious to get their boat, SWE63 (Orn), into the action.

Jesper Bank, who has two Olympic gold medals and a bronze, has earned the helmsman's job for the first day over Magnus Holmberg.

GBR Challenge have the bye.

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