France wins twice, capsizes once, as Burling leads Naples

Saturday on the Bay of Naples brought proper breeze, four races and three different winners. It also brought a second French capsize in two days. Peter Burling finished it eight points clear, with Emirates Team New Zealand his closest challenger.

On Friday the fleet spent most of the afternoon waiting for enough wind to race. On Saturday the breeze arrived on time and stayed. It sat around 16 to 18 knots at times, and by the last race it was gusting to 20, with a short chop that kept the AC40s' flight control busy. Two thousand spectator boats had registered for the weekend, and the crowds were lined up along the barriers on the Lungomare.

Four fleet races were sailed at the Louis Vuitton 38th America's Cup Preliminary Regatta, and the lead changed hands more in some of them than in the whole of Friday.

France: the fastest boat and the hardest to predict

The day belonged to La Roche-Posay Racing Team, one way or another. Over the last three races, Quentin Delapierre, Diego Botín, Florian Trittel and Kiwi trimmer Jason Saunders led at 13 of the 15 gate roundings. They won Race 4 from start to finish. In Race 6 they swapped the lead four times with Emirates Team New Zealand before pulling clear on the fifth leg.

In between, they capsized. In Race 5 they started the final run 27 seconds clear. A gybe near the boundary lifted the boat too high, it lost speed, and it tipped slowly onto its side. That's one capsize a day. On Friday it happened at the start of Race 2, when the rudder came clear of the water mid-turn. The crew were fine both times, and both times they lost a whole race's worth of points.

The French have shown they have the speed to win in Naples. They also keep crossing the line between pushing hard and keeping the boat on its foils with the mast pointing at the sky. Two wins and two retirements from six races leave them seventh, 12 points short of a place in the final. You can only win the final if you're in it.

Burling keeps scoring

Burling was less spectacular than the French and got more out of the day. Luna Rossa 1 won Race 3, leading from the first gate, then finished sixth, second and third. The second place came from the back of the fleet. Burling's crew nearly nosedived at the first gate of Race 5, dropped to the rear and worked all the way back. He scored 32 points on Saturday, more than any other boat.

The Kiwis: steady and streaky

Nathan Outteridge's crew had a poor Race 3. A penalty at the start and a slow last leg left them eighth. From there they went second, third and second. They pushed France hardest in Race 6, leading at the second and fourth gates, until the French pulled away on the fifth leg. Iain Jensen, Outteridge's Olympic 49er partner, was heard calling the breeze from the port trim seat as the Kiwis took the lead. Emirates Team New Zealand goes into Sunday second overall, five points clear of Alinghi.

The Women and Youth crew went from one extreme to the other. Jake Pye and Erica Dawson came off the foils at the first gate of Race 3 and finished last. They were fourth in Race 4. In Race 5 they sat second behind France through four gates, and when the French went over, they were there to take the win. It was New Zealand's first win in Naples and the first by any women and youth crew at the regatta.

"We started off pretty rough, but we feel like we're getting ourselves back in the race," Pye said. Then they capsized between races, were still headed to wind with a minute to go before Race 6, and finished ninth.

The rest of the fleet

Tudor Team Alinghi, with Kiwi Phil Robertson on port helm, was second in Race 3. The Swiss then finished third in Race 4 despite a double penalty at the bottom gate and a second penalty for sailing well out of bounds. They sit third overall.

Team USA got off the line well in almost every race, but penalties in Race 4 and a touchdown at a gate in Race 5 kept costing them places. GB1 and GB2 each ran near the front early in some races and couldn't hold on. Between them, they collected four penalties and a touchdown on Saturday.

Our picks from Saturday

Most improved: Emirates Team New Zealand Women and Youth. Pye and Dawson were fifth overall at the first preliminary regatta in Sardinia. On Saturday they won a race against the full fleet, and they are sixth overall, ahead of France and both British boats. Last and ninth either side of that win show there's still work to do. Race 5 showed what they can do when it comes together.

Best play: Burling's Race 5 recovery. Nearly nosediving at the first gate and dropping to the back of a nine-boat fleet should have wrecked his race. Instead, Luna Rossa 1 worked back through the fleet and finished second, seven points better than last place would have been. Outteridge's right-hand split on the first run of Race 6, which turned an eight-second deficit into the lead, was a close second.

The boat we most enjoyed watching: La Roche-Posay Racing Team. We always watch the Kiwis, and both New Zealand crews gave us plenty. But the French were the most fun to watch. Their roundings were clean, and the crew sounded calm on the comms. Their top speed of 47 knots in Race 6 was the fastest in that race's head-to-head. They also took more risk than anyone, and their results show it.

What tomorrow's racing holds

Two fleet races remain, worth up to 20 points, before the top two meet in a single winner-takes-all match race. Burling is in a strong position to be one of them. The fight is for the other place. Emirates Team New Zealand is five points ahead of Alinghi and eight ahead of Luna Rossa 2. A French crew that finishes both races could still make things awkward for all of them.

If the order holds, the final will be a rematch of Sardinia, where Luna Rossa beat the Kiwis. Before the regatta, Outteridge said Naples was a chance to work on what the team identified there. Two more races will decide whether he gets that chance.

Go Boating will have race-by-race live coverage, and a full Day 3 report on Monday morning.