By JULIE ASH
All eyes will be on the clash between OneWorld Challenge and Oracle BMW Racing in today's round of the Louis Vuitton Challenger series.
The battle of the unbeaten American syndicates not only pits Oracle's narrow USA76 against OneWorld's rounded USA67 but also sees Oracle boss Larry Ellison up
against one of his fiercest rivals in the software world.
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has helped to fund the OneWorld Challenge.
Though Ellison is part of Oracle's afterguard and often helms the boat, Allen is not in Auckland, but hopes to visit some time during the competition.
OneWorld maintained their unbeaten run with a convincing win over Team Dennis Conner yesterday but Oracle's match against Sweden's Victory Challenge, who are also unbeaten, was postponed, as was the race between Italian rivals Prada and Mascalzone Latino.
In the day's only other race, Alinghi beat the British GBR Challenge.
Shifty 8-10 knot winds made yesterday's racing a nightmare for the race committee, sailors and supporters. Racing went ahead on Course Romeo, but race organisers decided to postpone racing because of light winds on Course Juliet.
The two races unable to be contested yesterday will take place at the end of the first round-robin.
Oracle tactician John Cutler said though it was disappointing not to have raced yesterday he would rather race in steady conditions than compete in a "drift off".
He said his team were ready for a tough encounter with OneWorld, who are at the top of the table.
"They appear to have a good all-round sailboat that is performing strongly in a wide range of weather conditions," Cutler said.
Today's weather is expected to be sunny, with 10-15-knot winds.
In today's other races, Le Defi Areva face Team Dennis Conner, Victory Challenge meet Prada and GBR are up against Mascalzone Latino. Alinghi have the bye.
Just the French challenge Le Defi Areva and the second Italian challenge, Mascalzone, have yet to get a point on the board.
The French, who are keen rugby supporters, are keen to have an All Black on their boat as 17th man and have invited North Harbour's Ron Cribb on board today - possibly hoping he will bring them good luck.
The two races that did go ahead yesterday took over 2h 44m to compete - around 44 minutes longer than they generally take to complete.
After an even start, OneWorld Challenge led Team Dennis Conner around the first mark by an impressive 1m 57s.
But the changing conditions allowed Stars and Stripes skipper Ken Read and his team on USA66 to fight back to within just 16s of OneWorld at the second mark.
That was as close as Stars and Stripes got as OneWorld stretched their lead to more than four minutes at the last mark.
Stars and Stripes reduced the lead on the run home but OneWorld held on to win by 1m 21s.
Russell Coutts and his Swiss team Alinghi also had a trying match against GBR Challenge.
GBR suffered a tear to their mainsail on the first run after Chris Main put his foot through it while trying to adjust a batten up the mast.
Alinghi led at every mark but a 45s gain by the British at the second leeward mark closed the gap to 43s.
The Swiss managed to find what little breeze there was and finished 4m 33s ahead of GBR, who now have just one win after four races.
nzherald.co.nz/americascup
Racing schedule, results and standings
By JULIE ASH
All eyes will be on the clash between OneWorld Challenge and Oracle BMW Racing in today's round of the Louis Vuitton Challenger series.
The battle of the unbeaten American syndicates not only pits Oracle's narrow USA76 against OneWorld's rounded USA67 but also sees Oracle boss Larry Ellison up
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