A chink in the armour

It took until the dying gasps of the 2005 season before Alinghi yielded a match race to another team. Then on that very last day of match racing in Sicily, the invincible Defender lost boat races, one to K-Challenge and the other to BMW Oracle. Apart from that, 31 out of 33 victories was an ominous display from the Swiss, suggesting they could hold on to the Cup beyond 2007.

It took just two days of the 2006 season before Alinghi fell to another team. Yes, the team are still using the boat from last year, SUI-75, but their moments of weakness have come from lapses of concentration at the starts. Mascalzone Latino-Capitalia Team last year was a team that could barely get out of its own way, let along anyone else’s. With a number of disputes between the team and some key personnel, internal political struggle looked set to overwhelm the Italian campaign. And so when the red boat ITA-77 squared up to SUI-75 in the pre-start, few expected anything other than a walkover for the Defender.

But it seems that some of the firings and hirings in Mascalzone have done the team some good. There have been some key additions to the Mascalzone afterguard, among them the young Danish match racing duo, helmsman Jes Gram-Hansen and tactician Rasmus Kostner. These two have sailed together for years on the World Match Race Tour and have been looking for a way into the Cup scene. Having been given their break with Mascalzone the Danish friends are making the most of the opportunity. Where Alinghi was a couple of heartbeats late to the line, Jes Gram-Hansen took ITA-77 across the line on the B of BANG.

In times past, you could have relied on Mascalzone tripping over their own shoe laces while Alinghi cruised serenely by. And helmsman Ed Baird did indeed find a way past the Italians before the top of the first leg. But ITA 77 was close enough and fast enough to overtake the Swiss on the first downwind run, and the match was back on. Eventually SUI-75 brought her superior upwind boatspeed to bear once more, and the Swiss held off Mascalzone by less than a boatlength. A faster boat would have given Mascalzone the win they deserved.