By JULIE ASH
About three months ago, all that could be seen of Team Dennis Conner's USA77 yacht was the mast sticking up above the water after it sank off Long Beach, California.
Today, the boat - with its new bow - will line up against GBR Challenge in the
quarter-finals of the Louis Vuitton challenger series.
"The boat-builders have done a spectacular job. They have worked very hard to get it to where it is," Team Dennis Conner helmsman Ken Read said yesterday.
"It does have a speed edge over USA66 [their other yacht], so it became an easy decision."
The quarter-finals are the best-of-seven races.
In the top four, Prada line up against Russell Coutts' highly-fancied Alinghi and OneWorld clash with Oracle BMW Racing, while in the bottom four, Team Dennis Conner meet GBR Challenge and Victory Challenge face Le Defi Areva.
The winners from the top four advance to the semis, and the losers race the winners from the bottom four.
The losers from the bottom four are eliminated.
Like Team Dennis Conner, OneWorld have taken a gamble and changed boats, choosing USA65 over USA67.
Prada, however, have decided not to unleash the newly-revamped ITA80 for their match against Alinghi.
Prada skipper Francesco de Angelis said ITA80 required further testing, so they had decided to stick with ITA74.
"The last three days of work have been very positive," he said, "but it is really difficult to draw conclusions in that time. There are many different wind conditions under which we would like to test ITA80."
De Angelis said the advantage for those who went directly to the semifinals was considerable, therefore the stakes were high.
"We cannot afford to make any mistakes. If we want to win we have to do everything right."
As expected, Alinghi will sail SUI64. Skipper Russell Coutts said they had obviously picked the boat they saw as best matching their opponent's.
"Certainly, one of the reasons we have built two slightly different boats is to allow for this format and perhaps choose a boat more appropriate to the opposition."
Oracle skipper Chris Dickson, fronting up to the media for the first time yesterday, joked that his team had no option but to stick with USA76 for their match against OneWorld.
"Our clothing department have a lot of USA76 T-shirts, so USA71 wasn't an option."
Dickson said that with a win and a loss against OneWorld, it was going to be tough.
"As we saw in the last round, if we do the job right we can win races. But we also saw that if we make mistakes the other team will take the race off us."
With Dickson, Peter Holmberg, Ian Burns, John Cutler, Tomasso Chieffi and Larry Ellison, the question is who will make up Oracle's afterguard?
"Having analysed the pre-starts of all the teams, Peter Holmberg's track record is very good and you can expect to see him at the helm at the start-line," Dickson said.
"We will not be rotating, but we will be making subtle changes depending on the conditions on the day."
For GBR, the decision to use their second yacht, GBR78, against Team Dennis Conner was too risky.
"We are in a sudden-death situation and it is hard for us to take a gamble with any of our decisions, whether it be boat decisions, crew decisions or sail decisions," GBR skipper Ian Walker said.
"We have made a number of changes to GBR70 and we felt she offered the best opportunity for us to get through to the next round."
However, the start of the quarter-finals could be delayed today.
Organisers are predicting 19 to 26-knot winds, with gusts to 30 knots, which are above the starting limit of 19 knots.
Racing is scheduled to start at 1pm.
nzherald.co.nz/americascup
Racing schedule, results and standings
By JULIE ASH
About three months ago, all that could be seen of Team Dennis Conner's USA77 yacht was the mast sticking up above the water after it sank off Long Beach, California.
Today, the boat - with its new bow - will line up against GBR Challenge in the
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