Yachting: First blood to Prada after a bump start

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

The Italians vowed they would not dice with trouble in the cut-throat finale of the America's Cup challenger series.

Yet on day one of the Louis Vuitton Cup final - before they even crossed the startline - Prada hit their rivals, AmericaOne, and were immediately smacked with a penalty.

The punishment of a 270 degree turn would have killed the hopes of a lesser boat there and then.

Yet Prada miraculously did their pirouette in the middle of the Hauraki Gulf and still held off the dynamic USA61 for a 24s victory - and first blood in the best-of-nine series.

The Italians tried to mask their elation last night, but neither skipper Francesco de Angelis nor his trusty tactician Torben Grael could hide their grins.

Grael, master of the conniving winds of the gulf yesterday, promised that his crew would try to keep out of grief from now on.

"Next time we will make sure there is a little more separation between the two boats," he smiled.

"At least we are getting very good at exonerating ourselves."

AmericaOne skipper Paul Cayard expected to lose a few races in this challenger final - but maybe not the first race, or to a team with a penalty.

"I've been in a lot of regattas, and I've been behind before," he said. Remember back to 1992, when Cayard and Il Moro di Venezia were down 1-4 to NZL20, and fought back - on the water and the protest room - to win the challenger final.

"I expected to lose some races in this round. It happened that we took the first loss, so it's an interesting challenge now."

Cayard is far from despondent. He was adamant that the shifty winds controlled yesterday's race, and both skippers agreed they saw no difference in boatspeed between the two combatants.

The race began in a 14 knot southerly, the boats engaging in a slow-motion dance in the pre-start, with Luna Rossa creeping up from behind on AmericaOne.

Prada gained the overlap, but they failed to give AmericaOne room to turn away, and Cayard swept his stern into the nose of Luna Rossa.

It was a mere graze - the penalty hurt more. The Italians skulked away to the left side of the course, and that turned out to be a godsend.

There was more wind pressure to the left, and when the two boats next met, Luna Rossa crossed 11/2 boatlengths ahead.

The penalty still hung over the Italians' heads, yet they sailed with confidence.

The wind dropped from 14 knots to 10 on the first beat - the breeze range supposedly more suited to AmericaOne. But at the first mark, Prada were 25s up, extending that to 33s downwind.

Then the boats went their different ways - AmericaOne left, Prada right - and had more than a kilometre of water between them, as neither boat covered the opposition.

"You've seen it for three months and you're going to see it again - unorthodox, non-textbook matchracing," Cayard said later.

The split didn't pay for AmericaOne, who found themselves a minute behind as Luna Rossa reached the mark. De Angelis took the opportunity to spin the boat around in a tight circle and still rounded with 25s to spare.

AmericaOne sent Morgan Larson up the mast in a desperate attempt to find a winning puff of breeze, but it wasn't until the final run to the finish that Cayard made his big move of the race.

Halfway home, AmericaOne nosed in behind Luna Rossa's transom, but could not nudge past.