CORM Race Committee Trials

RESULTS

Day 1 (saturday) GBR def. OneWorld OneWorld def. GBR Day 2 (Sunday) GBR def. Prada A Alinghi def. Oracle Prada B def. Oracle Alinghi def. Prada A Day 3 (Monday) OneWorld def. Prada A Alinghi def. Prada B GBR def. Oracle Oracle def. GBR Prada B def. Alinghi Prada A def. OneWorld Day 4 (Tuesday)* Alinghi def. GBR OneWorld def. Oracle Alinghi def. Oracle OneWorld def. GBR
* Prada is off

Coutts impressions about the CORM regatta (03/06/02)
(Source : alinghi.com)

It seems former Team New Zealand skipper Russell Coutts was the man to watch in the regatta. OneWorld, GBR, Alinghi, Prada and Oracle all took part in , which was a trial run for race staff. Officially there was no winner, but unofficially Coutts was.

After three days of regatta and six races against other challengers, Team Alinghi is finding its ‘feet’ in a competitive environment. Russell Coutts gives us his first impressions on the crew after these races.

Russell Coutts – Alinghi’s skipper : “Today (Tuesday) we sailed in 20+ knots of wind and flat sea. It gives us good grounds for observation of the crew’s behaviour not only while competing in a race but also in blustery conditions. We will take what we’ve seen on the water these past few days and apply it to our training and team-building. There are still a few things to work on”.

Asked about the performance of the other teams on the water these past few days, he adds : “They’re excellent. The level of preparation of challengers is much higher than it was for the last Cup at the same period. We can count on a fierce competition in October” (start of the Louis Vuitton Cup).

“It was also very motivating to see boats from the last America's Cup 2000 series race against each other. It had been a long time”.

Once the CORM trials are over, daily tests and training will resume on a 6 days a week, 12 hours a day basis. However this week will have started a new stage in Alinghi’s preparation for the next Louis Vuitton Cup.

End of the CORM regatta (03/05/02)
(Source : madforsailing.com & Louis Vuitton Cup)

The CORM Race Committee Trials concluded today in blustery conditions and bright sunshine. Conditions were similar to yesterday with 17-25 knots from the South West yielding physical sailing on flat water.

Two flights of races took place with Oracle and OneWorld racing in the first match and GBR and Alinghi the second. Then in the second flight Alinghi and Oracle met in the first pair and OneWorld and GBR Challenge went up against each other in the second. For the last day, Prada declining to join the games.

-	In the first race of the day the Alinghi team, although the GBR 52 (with Andy Beadsworth at the helm for the second day in a row, and Adrian Stead plus Ian Walker at his shoulder) was aggressive in the pre-start, they couldn't get the better of the Alinghi crew (Russel Coutts with Brad Butterworth calling tactics and Ernesto Bertarelli as navigator). After a clean start and boatspeed for SUI 59, GBR Challnege could not match the speed that Coutts squeezed out of this once woeful boat. In the end Alinghi took the gun by about two minutes.
-	The other match in the first flight was between OneWorld in the hands of James Spithill, and Oracle steered by John Cutler. The team from Seattle got the better of the start, and never looked threatened.
-	The second flight of the day, Alinghi faced Oracle, turned into a classic battle, one of the best seen on the Hauraki Gulf. John Cutler managed to out-manoeuvre Coutts on the starting line, and came away with a slight advantage. On the first windward leg, Coutts slipped ahead, but Cutler re-gained the advantage to round the windward mark 17 seconds ahead. Gybe after gybe being thrown during the down wind, until the Swiss gained the advantage. However Cutler and his Oracle crew weren't giving up, and the two boats traded tack for tack up the second beat, though the Americans just couldn't break through, they were always within a few boat lengths. Coutts defended his lead on the run to the finish, but was constantly under threat.
-	In the last match of the second flight, GBR Challenge were outclassed by OneWorld on the starting line, and never got back into the game.

Madforsailing unveils the CORM regatta (03/04/02)
(Source : madforsailing.com)

Today, Madforsailing.com Breaks Information Blockade on Corm Regatta and has a detailed report/observations of the CORM Race Committee trial. Excerpt.

Day one of the CORM Race Committee Trials got off to a fine start in moderate 12-15 knot winds. It must be said that Alinghi did seem to have the best start :

-	Prada A (the former Young America helmed by Francesco de Angelis with Gavin Brady calling tactics) won the start, leaving Andy Green (who helmed GBR 52 for GBR Challenge) to cross behind. The Brits take the left hand side of the course up the beat and picked up a major lift that put them into the lead at the weather mark. From here it was a close-run battle between the two boats with GBR Challenge just managing to hold off the Italian on-slaught until the finish, despite Prada A appearing to have superior boat speed. In the end GBR Challenge took the gun by less than a minute.
-	Against Oracle (USA 49 with John Cutler and Tommaso Chieffi), Alinghi (SUI 59 with Russel Coutts and Brad Butterworth) took the right side of the course, protected it and as a result held a margin of around two minutes at the finish.
-	Prada B (the former Luna Rossa with Rod Davis behind the wheel) demolished Oracle Racing on USA 49.
-	Racing was much tighter between the final pairing of Alinghi and Prada A. Once again Coutts and Butterworth proved dominant. BeHappy dispatched Prada's Young America with over two minute wins.

Monday, conditions on the water in the Hauraki Gulf today were near perfect, with a south-westerly breeze in the 18 to 23 knot range, which made for a relatively smooth sea, while the sun warmed the wind.

-	Prada A (the former Young America helmed by Francesco de Angelis with Gavin Brady calling tactics) lost another match against Peter Gilmour at the helm of the old America True for OneWorld.
-	Another victory for Alinghi (helmed by Jochen Schuemann) against Prada B with Gavin Brady at the wheel of Luna Rossa.
-	In the third match of the first flight Andy Beadsworth maintained the GBR Challenge for aggression on the start line, to lead all the way from Oracle, under the control of John Cutler, with Peter Holmberg no where to be seen.
-	In the second flight Oracle winning the start, and building an early lead, but surprisingly GBR Challenge came back at them, but an unusual broken mainsail ended their threat.
-	Jochen Schumann gave away his chances of a second score over Brady when he was over the line at the start, allowing Luna Rossa to sail away for an easy point.
-	The other Prada team, which also had Rod Davis and Torben Grael in the afterguard got the better of Peter Gilmour's OneWorld team.

A new debate as to whether this is an official regatta could get stirred up by Team New Zealand, who say that an event which has a Notice of Race and a Race Committee - which this does - must be an official event. If that is the case, then they are allowed to observe and photograph it, however at least one of the teams taking part have threated to go to the arbitration panel if they do.

Black-out on the CORM regatta (03/03/02)
(Source : 2003ac.com)

"As this is not an "official" regatta and as there is currently no real format it will be hard to determine any overall results from this event" explained Louis Vuitton. Thats' true !!!

Yesterday in Auckland, the first day of unofficial racing took place at the CORM Race Committee Trials and no results are available ...

We just know that Prada was defeated twice yesterday, by GBR and Alinghi.

Regatta posponed ... but sailed (03/02/02)
(Source : Louis Vuitton & Madforsailing)

With a terrible weather forecast for the Hauraki Gulf today the start of the CORM Race Committee Trials was postponed for 24 hours.

That didn’t stop several of the challenger syndicates from making their own arrangements and setting up racing themselves. Team Prada spent all day practising starting manoeuvres, Victory Challenge raced its two black boats against each other.

The only inter-challenger racing that did take place was between GBR Challenge and OneWorld, who laid their own courses. They sailed two races n 12-15 knots of breeze from the North West and at the end of the day the score was one all.

In the first race GBR Challenge missed a shift on the first beat, losing OneWorld in the process.

The second race was hotly contested with Peter Gilmour taking a penalty in the pre-start and featuring plenty of tacking and gybing duels. Around 30 seconds separated the boats at the finish line.

CORM Race Committee Trials preview II (02/28/02)
(Source : CNN)

The America's Cup challengers practice regatta that starts on Saturday in Auckland has highlighted the competitiveness between the syndicates with two of the newest challengers likely to be left out of the racing.

The racing has been organised by the Challenger Of Record Committee (CORM) as a practice for its own race management for the Louis Vuitton Cup, an elimination series which starts on October 1 that will decide who will challenge New Zealand in February 2002 for the Cup.

The four days of practice races starting this Saturday will be run over the full length upwind/downwind America's Cup course, but with the number of legs reduced from six to four.

The challengers currently in Auckland have been invited to organise their own pairings to add some authenticity for the race committee in a sequence of three starts.

This means that there will only be room for six challengers at a time. In addition CORM have arranged for two international judges to act as on course umpires.

In a meeting on Wednesday the challengers decided on a round robin format, with all the teams racing each other at least once. They agreed there would be no official points scoring and no knockout final as in the America's Cup.

The teams that will race are the Swiss Alinghi, Britain's GBR Challenge, the U.S. OneWorld Challenge, the U.S. Oracle Racing Team and Italy's Prada Challenge. All the teams will be racing boats from the last America's Cup 2000 series and Prada have entered two boats making a total of six teams.

This arrangement has left two of the new America's Cup syndicates, Sweden's Victory Team and the latest arrival in Auckland, the Italian Mascalzone Latino Challenge, without starts.

Reports suggest the Swedes wanted to race with their 1995 vintage yacht NZL 38 brought from the New Zealanders rather than their brand new Mani Frers design, which made such a good showing a week ago in the International Regatta against the current holder of the Cup, NZL 60. The other challengers thought NZL 38 would not be competitive enough to make the racing worthwhile.

The Mascalzone Latino Challenge surprised everybody this week when they arrived in Auckland and announced they had bought US 55, the old Stars & Stripes, from OneWorld. The second challenge from Italy financed by Vincenzo Onerato, the owner of the Moby Lines ferry company, was not expected until later in the year with their new Ceccarelli design.

The team have never sailed in an America's Cup Class yacht and so are considered as one of the outside chances.

Wedged in between the towering edifices of the Oracle and OneWorld bases, the Mascalzone team only have a single rented portocabin on a vast expanse of concrete. "Our base was due to start construction next week," said shore manager Tom Weaver.

"When the opportunity came to purchase US 55 we felt that it would be a great chance to get our sailing team down here to learn how to sail an IAAC class yacht. We will be training here until mid April and will welcome racing against any of the other teams as we do not have a second trial horse."

Weaver said that they will be out sailing every day during the unofficial regatta and if there is vacant place in any of the pairings they would be keen to join in.

CORM Race Committee Trials preview (02/25/02)
(Source : LV Cup)

Over four days in early March CORM (the Challenger of Record Management) will organise race committee trials for the Louis Vuitton Cup.

What this means in practical terms is that a race course will be laid on the Hauraki Gulf and starting sequences run in accordance with the proposed Louis Vuitton Cup race instructions, over four days.

The main beneficiaries of this operation are returning race committee volunteers from the last Louis Vuitton Cup series held three years ago, as well as new-comers to the large, on-the-water race management team required to mount an event the size of the challenger series.

To add authenticity to the exercise CORM has asked the challengers currently present in Auckland to participate and organise themselves to unofficially race each other.

So far five of the six challenger syndicates currently sailing in Auckland have indicated that they intend to participate. These syndicates are Sweden’s Victory Challenge, Britain’s GBR Challenge, Switzerland’s Alinghi Challenge, America’s OneWorld Challenge and Italy’s Prada Challenge.

CORM will also use the opportunity to give some of the new comer on-the-water umpires the opportunity to get used to judging ACC boats and familiarise themselves with the America’s Cup world. To help them with their tasks these Louis Vuitton Cup Umpires will be paired with umpires who are currently affiliated with participating teams, for races with the teams concerned.