They had to score a win to get themselves back in the series. They had to score a win to stem Oracle BMW’s march to the Louis Vuitton Cup Finals.

The pre-start of this match seemed the best place to start. OneWorld helmsman James Spithill has been nothing short of spectacular in the pre-starts. The 25-year-old Aussie has consistently beaten his opponent or gotten the side desired by the weather team.

Today, however, it went awry on him.

OneWorld entered the start box on starboard. Spithill forced Oracle BMW helmsman Peter Holmberg, who’s no slouch in the pre-start, into a dial-up. The two boats luffed head-to-wind for two and a half minutes, drifting backwards at 2 to 3 knots.

During this period Oracle BMW flagged OneWorld twice, but both incidents were green-flagged.

The first flag came when OneWorld tacked to port in an apparent attempt to sail away, but they still had to avoid Oracle BMW, which was starboard-tack yacht in the situation.

“Before they got forward momentum they were going to keep going backwards,” said umpire Brad Dellenbaugh. “I think they realised that they were going to get closer and they had to straighten out to keep clear.”

Oracle BMW’s second flag against OneWorld came for a similar situation. But the umpires deemed that OneWorld was still sufficiently keeping clear, which led to the green flags.

Oracle BMW flagged a third time and it stuck. OneWorld was penalised by the umpires for failing to keep clear as the windward yacht. The call was the result of bad positioning after drifting backwards for so long.

“We probably hung on too long in the luffing situation,” said OneWorld skipper Peter Gilmour. “It was fairly obvious from 30 to 40 seconds before the penalty that there was a reasonable chance that, with us in the windward position in that situation, that could occur.”

As the boats drifted backwards they became slanted towards the left. OneWorld sheeted on to starboard tack to try and sail away, but in doing so side-slipped closer to USA-76.

Dellenbaugh felt the boats were going to hit. There were no more than two metres separating the hulls and even less between the leech of OneWorld’s mainsail and Oracle BMW’s mast.

“I didn’t look up in the pre-start, but afterwards (navigator) Ian Burns said that they were very, very close,” said Oracle BMW skipper Chris Dickson.

The penalty was the first issued by the umpires since they flagged Prada in one of its semi final matches against OneWorld.

“I think they could’ve gotten out of that situation earlier in the sequence, but they probably didn’t feel as if they needed to at that point,” said Dellenbaugh.

After the penalty there was about 75 seconds left to the start and the boats were some 200 metres below the line. Oracle BMW footed off to gain speed and then tacked to port to approach the line. They were heading outside the committee boat.

OneWorld tacked to port and seemed to be on perfect timing for the middle of the line as Oracle BMW tacked to starboard to leeward. The start gun was fired and then came the words, “Yellow over!”

OneWorld was a split second early. If their bow was over their forestay wasn’t, but Principal Race Officer Peter Reggio said that the pin end buoy was obscured.

The gaffe gave Oracle BMW a 31-second advantage off the line, but Gilmour isn’t about to abandon his young student.

“James is extremely mature for his young years. He excels time and time again,” Gilmour said. “It’s one of those situations that occurs and that’s life. You take your digs. James was obviously annoyed, but he got over it very quickly after the finish and started thinking about tomorrow.”

Source: Sean McNeill