By PETER LESTER
That was the best race of the regatta. It showed Alinghi is not infallible on the water.
Russell Coutts judged Alinghi's start to perfection, crossing right on the gun just a second ahead of Oracle.
Up the first windward beat, the Alinghi guys were sailing a style that would indicate
they figure they have an edge; they didn't feel as though they were vulnerable.
As expected, the attack from Oracle came on the first downwind leg. Alinghi defended, but on the third leg Oracle got a nice left-hand shift which brought them back to within a couple of boat-lengths.
On the fourth leg, Oracle did a nice job of getting themselves into position to attack.
The feature to me downwind was that Peter Holmberg did a beaut job gybing the boat.
In the gybe that put them ahead, they started a little bit behind Alinghi and finished a little ahead, the power came on and they were able to roll over the top.
Later came the luffing duel. I thought it was very close - we only see on television shots, but Oracle was asking for Alinghi to keep clear.
My reaction was that they had the penalty, but the umpires did not agree.
But then there was an error - about the only error Oracle made in the whole race - when they ran into Alinghi's transom and were penalised themselves.
It looked to me like an unforced error. They surged in on a swell and it's so easy to get it wrong, and that cost them.
The change of conditions was a big factor.
We got out of rough water and got into lighter wind, and Oracle look good in those conditions.
Now Oracle know they can beat Alinghi in the finals, they just have to stay out of trouble.
* Peter Lester is Yachting New Zealand's high-performance manager.
