Yachting: Collision brings America's Cup to a halt

By Suzanne McFadden

AmericaOne tactician John Kostecki could not sleep after seeing the mangled stern of his America's Cup boat, crunched by their old rivals from the Dennis Conner camp.

Last night, the AmericaOne crew worked feverishly into the early hours to rebuild the back of their yacht, still not knowing whether it would be ready for its next race in the Louis Vuitton Cup, on Wednesday.

While Paul Cayard's team were granted three days to fix the severe damage - an unprecedented move in the America's Cup - they wondered yesterday if it would be long enough.

The collision during Saturday's racing, when Conner's Stars & Stripes t-boned AmericaOne before the race start, has brought the America's Cup to a standstill.

All racing was delayed for three days to allow AmericaOne and the Swiss boat Be Happy to make repairs.

Nippon and the Spanish Challenge also needed a little patching up after a crazy day at sea.

Kostecki can still hear the sickening crunch of boat on boat after Stars & Stripes helmsman Ken Read miscalculated badly in the pre-start stoush.

"When carbon fibre is hit it makes an ugly sound," he said. "It's like taking a bag of crisp potato chips and smashing it with your hands - only much louder. I saw them coming so I just told everyone to hang on."

Cayard, at the wheel, almost fell overboard as the boats collided.

Stars & Stripes' bow carved a gouge along the starboard side of AmericaOne, two metres in from the end of the boat. The scoop of the stern was twisted and crumpled.

"We were all pretty shaken," Kostecki said. "But we just couldn't understand it.

"This isn't a heavily weighted round-robin - it's one point a win. Our goal right now was to survive without damaging the boat."

Goal not achieved.

AmericaOne carried on racing, overtaking Stars & Stripes to notch up their seventh win from eight starts.

But after looking at the damage back on land, Cayard wondered if it was a wise idea.

Said Kostecki: "As we were racing, there was a one-foot chunk hanging off the back, dragging in the water. Maybe we should have quit the race, but we're so competitive, we just wanted to win it after that."

Read and some of his crew went over in their rubber boat straight after the race and apologised.

"They offered to pay for the damage," Kostecki said. "They're a professional bunch of sailors - they understand they made a mistake."

On the race course, Stars & Stripes were given a 270-degree turn penalty for their misdemeanour, but AmericaOne were not impressed with the ruling.

"My opinion is that the umpires are a little lenient on the rules," Kostecki said. "They're comfortable with the boats getting really close - but the sailors aren't.

"I didn't think the umpires really understand the severity of these little collisions. On the matchracing circuit, they'd have the boats fixed out on the course, or just get another one.

"I'd love to invite the umpires down here to see the boat and see how long its going to take to repair it."

Stars & Stripes could be penalised further today when they appear before the international jury on a matter of failing to avoid a collision.

Nippon were docked 0.5 points on Saturday night for doing the same in their victory over Bravo Espana.

The Spanish had their problems, losing crewman Antonio Payeras overboard. He was picked up by a support boat and returned to the yacht, which incurred a penalty for the incident.

The pre-start dramas overshadowed the big race on Saturday, when unbeaten Prada came from behind on the final run to inflict the first loss on Young America.

The Americans, who lost control of their spinnaker and lost by 10s, now wait for their showdown with AmericaOne on Wednesday.

But if AmericaOne's boat is still not ready, they can apply for a further delay.