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Emirates Team New Zealand is the winner of Act
2 of the 32nd America’s Cup after all racing was
cancelled on Tuesday.
Principal Race Officer Peter Reggio managed to squeeze
off the first Flight on the schedule just after
noon in a light Westerly breeze, but the wind soon
died, and the leg time limit of 40-minutes expired
for all of the matches, forcing them to be abandoned.
The Race Committee and the teams stayed out on the
Gulf of Valencia most of the afternoon in hope that
the wind would build enough to allow racing, but
their patience was in vain, and racing was cancelled
for the day just after 15:30.
As there are no more race days left for Act 2, each
team is awarded one half point for matches not raced,
as dictated under the Rules. With every team receiving
a further 1.5 points, the leaderboard is unchanged
from Monday.
The result leaves Emirates Team New Zealand alone
at the top with 11.5 points, one point clear of
Luna Rossa. The Kiwis are perhaps fortunate to escape
second Round Robin matches with Team Alinghi and
BMW Oracle Racing, although they can rightly point
out that they beat both of those teams in the first
Round Robin and defeated the Italian Luna Rossa
in Round Robin Two, thus earning their status at
the top.
The only top team to beat the Kiwis is Luna Rossa
which is the other team to claim defeats over each
of the other ‘big three’ across the two Round Robins,
but its loss to the Kiwis on Monday in a light air
match is the difference between first and second
place.
BMW Oracle Racing, the winner of the Marseille Louis
Vuitton Act in September and Team Alinghi, the Defender
of the America’s Cup, will be unaccustomed to their
final positions in third and fourth on the table.
Team Alinghi lost to each of the teams ahead of
it, as did the BMW Oracle Racing squad, which squeezes
ahead of Alinghi by virtue of winning their first
Round Robin match.
This would have to be considered a successful regatta
for Le Défi who defeated each of the teams
on the bottom half of the ladder at least once.
The last of the teams sailing a 2003-generation
boat, the French team was aggressive on the starts,
and generally performed well.
Their French rivals on K-Challenge, sailing a 2000-generation
boat were able to beat Le Défi in the first
Round Robin, although that loss was avenged in their
second meeting. K-Challenge too had a good week
here, scaring a few of the big teams by leading
for some of their matches, but in the end, K-Challenge
had to be content with those ‘moral victories’ over
the big teams, claiming its points against Le Défi
and the two teams below it on the points table.
+39 earned a pair of wins on the race course, all
the more remarkable for the paltry big boat experience
of the crew. This Italian team can likely claim
to have learned the most during the week.
The South African Team Shosholoza is another squad
that benefited from the racing here, although it
had nothing to show for it on the points table.
Shosholoza also competed well against some of the
bigger teams, and threw a fright into its opposition
on multiple occasions, but in the end, the team
sailing the oldest boat at this regatta failed to
pick up a victory on the water.
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