Tudor Team Alinghi will head into the final day of the Louis Vuitton 38th America's Cup Preliminary Regatta in Naples sitting third overall, and still very much in the hunt for a place in Sunday's match-race final.
It wasn't a clean start to Race Day 2. A hydraulic problem, followed by a chain wrapped around the foil, kept the shore team busy and delayed the AC40's departure for the racecourse, leaving the crew next to no time to warm up.
They responded anyway. In Fleet Race 3, forced to give way to another boat before the start, the Swiss crossed the line at the back of the fleet. From there they clawed their way through the pack to finish second.
Fleet Race 4 was another front-runner. Sharp tactical calls and aggressive mark roundings carried them into the lead on the final lap, before they settled for third at the finish.
Then the afternoon turned scrappy. Shifting breeze and uneven pressure kept the tightly packed nine-boat fleet shuffling positions all afternoon, and nobody was immune.
Tudor Team Alinghi added fifth and seventh to their card. La Roche-Posay Racing Team, out in front of Fleet Race 5, capsized, a sign of just how demanding the conditions had become.
Third overall on 38 points, Tudor Team Alinghi sit five behind Emirates Team New Zealand in second. Luna Rossa leads on 51.
Two fleet races remain on Sunday before the top two teams go through to the winner-take-all match-race final. Tudor Team Alinghi arrives at the final day with a genuine shot at getting there.
Skipper and starboard helm Paul Goodison didn't hide how tight the morning had been. "We were late off the dock with some hydraulic problems, and then we had the chain wrapped around the foil, so we didn't get to the racecourse in time. The guys did a fantastic job of fixing it the best they could."
"We had very limited warm-up and no practice starts. We didn't really have time to do any mark roundings, so to come out and nail the first two races was really impressive.
"The last two were a bit more of a battle, but as a team we kept our composure and kept trying to fight for those places. When you're at the back, it gets easy to throw everything away, but we stuck at it and battled well as a Team."
Port helm Phil Robertson pointed to the boat speed as the real takeaway. "In the first two races we had really good pace and could put the boat where we wanted, which was key today. It was really shifty and puffy, and if you could tack where you wanted to tack, you were going to make gains. We managed to do that a lot and made some good calls on board."
"We'll take a lot of confidence from our boat speed going forward. It was a big step today in how we're sailing the boat and managing to match a lot of the top teams. There are a lot of positives from today to reinforce going into tomorrow."
