Yachting: Challengers count cost of battering

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

Cristian Griggio was the human face on the list of calamities on a tumultuous day on the Hauraki Gulf yesterday.

The Prada pitman will wear a scar to remember the fateful day Luna Rossa was toppled by Stars & Stripes in the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger semifinals.

Griggio has a gash above his eye after whacking his head on the boom in a day of mishaps on board the silver bullet.

Luna Rossa's boom vang broke in two places and Griggio did not notice that the boom was lower than usual. He sailed out the rest of the race and was patched up by a doctor on board the chase boat later.

Prada had a string of sail problems too, but nowhere near as bad as in the "Battle of the Golden Gate Bridge" nearby.

AmericaOne and America True suffered damage costing thousands of dollars as they turned the racecourse into a sail graveyard.

Both teams cut away damaged sails, Dawn Riley's yellow boat shredding a spinnaker and Paul Cayard's new USA61 losing a jib overboard. Then both boats broke spinnaker poles, and the crews worked frantically to mend them in the wet and wild conditions.

The final blow hit AmericaOne when they had built a lead of more than a minute - the jib halyard broke, the headfoil disintegrated and the crew eventually gave up trying to raise a headsail.

America True managed to hold themselves together to notch up their first victory of the semis.

In the other clash of the day, Le Defi France had no idea what the wind was doing when the electronics on board Sixieme Sens blew out. In the meantime, opponents Nippon waged a war with a broken jib halyard, and emerged victors.

The problems were not confined to the challengers, either. Team New Zealand escaped snapping their rig when a jumper strut broke at the top of NZL60's mast.