Yachintg: Official gets tough on raceday chaos

By Suzanne McFadden

The patience of a former US Navy Seal, who controls racing in the America's Cup challenger series, was pushed to the limit yesterday.

Vince Cooke, the race officer for the Louis Vuitton Cup, yesterday cried "Enough!" Out on the race course, amidst the disarray, skippers asked six times for racing to be delayed for varying reasons.

But by mid-afternoon Cooke put his boot down, and denied anyone a break, even when boats were broken. He simply wanted to get to the end of a very long, very strange day on the water.

When the sea spray had settled and the band-aids were applied to bruised boats last night, Nippon skipper Peter Gilmour asked the question that those who witnessed the mayhem wanted to know: didn't anyone want to race yesterday?

Two boats, the French and the Swiss, did not turn up to race on the penultimate day of round one. Others, like the Spanish and the Australians, went home early.

All day a string of boats made their way around the track in single file. It was the first time that this fleet had faced serious winds - just over 20 knots and the stream of troubles began early.

Young America were granted a 45-minute break to go back to the shelter of their cup village base and fix their space-age mast.

By the time they began the tow back to the Hauraki Gulf course, the countdown for their race with Stars & Stripes had begun.

They crossed the startline 28 minutes after Stars & Stripes, so the victory constituted one of six walkovers yesterday.

In the battle between Nippon and America True, helmsmen Gilmour and John Cutler asked three times for postponements for gear failure, but were given two.

Once they got going, their race turned into the highlight of the day - True making up almost a minute surfing in on the final run to finish one second behind Nippon.

In the afternoon, Hawaii's Abracadabra and Young Australia cried foul, demanding to know in the protest room late last night why some postponements were granted, yet theirs were not.

Abracadabra suffered rudder problems and could not steer properly in their 5m 58s loss to Prada, while Young Australia packed up and left when they were not given time to replace a broken batten in the pre-start of their race with Stars & Stripes.

Cooke, who had been in race mode since making weather checks at 4.30am, put it bluntly.

"There's nothing in the conditions that say I have to grant anyone a postponement," he said.

"There were more requests for postponements today than the entire '92 and '95 cups put together.

"It was clear to me that everyone wanted to wrap this thing up today. We were looking at the time - I didn't want to listen to any more requests.

"I told all the yachts that in the second flight of the day, no delays would be accepted. We'd had enough."

But it's not over yet.

AmericaOne, who were given the biggest delay yet (four days) to fix their boat, finish the round against Young Australia and Young America today.

No matter what happens, Prada have been crowned kings of round one - finishing unscathed yesterday with 10 wins from 10.