America’s Cup champion skipper Jimmy Spithill of Oracle Racing swept the French Energy Team in two races on Saturday to win the match racing portion of the America’s Cup World Series in San Diego Bay.
Spithill, who skippered Oracle Racing’s trimaran to victory in last year’s America’s Cup off Valencia, Spain, steered his 45 foot (13.7m), wing-sailed catamarans to wins of 9 seconds and 1 minute, 7 seconds in the best-of-three series.
Oracle came from behind after losing the start of the first race. They led throughout the second race and steadily pulled away.
Photo: Reuters
Spithill’s crew, which spent 15 months training in San Diego before last year’s America’s Cup victory over Alinghi of Switzerland, had an edge in match racing experience, while the French had an edge in multihull experience.
The winner-take-all fleet racing championship that was to take place yesterday is worth half the points in the overall event scoring. Spithill will try to become the first skipper to sweep both the match racing and fleet racing ends of an America’s Cup World Series event. This is the third stop on the ACWS, a prelude to the 2013 America’s Cup on San Francisco Bay.
The shifty wind was nine knots and fading.
Spithill tried to press his advantage in the pre-start maneuvering before the first race. However, the French refused to engage, escaped, won the start and held the lead until making a tactical error on the second upwind leg.
The boats were separated by 650m when trailing Oracle found a puff of wind on the right side to wipe out a French lead of almost 100m. When the boats came together in a near dead heat, Spithill used his right-of-way angle to force the French into two additional turning maneuvers.
Spithill won the start of the second race and pulled steadily away in the ever-changing conditions.
Asked if the local knowledge gained from training in San Diego helped, he said: “Only if we knew that we didn’t know what to expect next.”
Dean Barker and Emirates New Zealand, the overall series leader after the first two stops of the ACWS, took third place by defeating Artemis Racing of Sweden team by 39 seconds.
The French Aleph team took fifth by beating Oracle Racing’s other crew, skippered by Darren Bundock. Korea Team took seventh by beating Spain’s Green Comm. China Team did not race on Saturday and finished ninth.
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