Yachting: Ainslie bounces back in semifinal

Ben Ainslie

Team New Zealand's Ben Ainslie and Britain's Ian Williams are tied 1-1 in the semifinals of the Allianz Match Racing Cup in San Francisco.

Ainslie and his crew of Terry Hutchinson, Tony Rae, James Dagg and Jeremy Lomas lost the first race but bounced back to win the second to tie the best of five series.

Williams won the first race after unloading a penalty but Ainslie won the second when he nipped Williams at the finish of a 5-minute run that saw the lead change hands three times.

In the other semifinal, Alinghi's Ed Baird leads United Internet Team Germany's Jesper Bank 2-0.

Racing resumes today with the remaining semifinal matches and the final, which is also a best of five series.

The regatta is the fifth stage of the 15-event World Match Racing Tour. The inaugural Allianz Cup offers a US$100,000 ($151,105) prize purse and is the only regatta in the series taking place in the US. The teams are racing J/105s, a one-design class of boats about 10m long.

Ainslie, who is competing in his first tour event since March, dismissed Italian Paolo Cian in the quarter finals 3-1.

Ainslie controlled Cian for much of their match, dropping only the third flight. He won the match in the fourth when Cian was saddled with a penalty.

Oracle Racing's skipper Chris Dickson was knocked out by Baird in the quarter-finals. The Kiwi helmsman won the first race but lost the next three, handing Baird the victory.

Oracle chief executive and founder of the BMW Oracle Racing America's Cup syndicate, Larry Ellison, failed to advance to the quarterfinals.

Racing with a Kiwi crew - Gavin Brady, Rod Dawson, Morgan Trubovich, Brad Webb - Ellison finished with 2 wins and 5 losses.

The regatta may not be Ellison's last World Tour event. He received an impromptu invitation to next month's Monsoon Cup in Malaysia from Australian sailor Peter Gilmour, the event's technical director.

"Just yesterday I got word that Russell Coutts is unavailable to come because he doesn't have a crew, said Gilmour.

"So Larry, there's an opening for you. It's known as the world's richest event in sailing with 1 million ringgit [$413,800] in prize money.

"Are you serious?," replied Ellison, who is ranked 15th on the Forbes rich list.

"I guess that's a yes," Gilmour concluded.

* New Zealand yachtie Graham Dalton is under way in the Velux Five Oceans solo round-the-world race. Dalton started the race in Spain five days late after his mast was damaged in a storm two days before the race.

Last night Dalton, one of eight skippers competing in the three-leg, 48,300km race, trailed the race leader, Switzerland's Bernard Stamm, by 2350km. Stamm was 18,414kms from the first stop in Fremantle.