Yesterday was the first day of racing in living memory. Ok, perhaps a slight exaggeration, but you get the idea. I had left the hostel in the morning and took one look around and almost turned back. I couldn’t imagine racing taking place in conditions like they were. Visibility was way down with a heavy mist and drizzle coming down. Looking off to the horizon didn’t reveal any potential improvements. The wind was up too, with the surf pounding strongly along Orewa Beach. I knew I’d never forgive myself if the race went ahead and I wasn’t there to watch it live, so I forged ahead. I sent Barry an SMS asking for info from the website, and fortunately he came through with the goods in mere seconds. The race was on. I got Barry’s message just as the bus was pulling up, so I got on and went out to Manly.

On arriving at Manly I walked out to my vantage point. I had to put on my bright yellow rain shell to keep dry(ish). I got there and set up my thermarest camp chair and borrowed a cinder block from a nearby construction site, which I used to keep my radio and other goodies dry. I could barely see the spectator fleet and the boats through the fog. Nevertheless, the race started at 1:15pm sharp in a breeze of about 20+ knots and swells of 6 feet. Alinghi got a super start, hitting the line at full speed exactly as the gun went off, while TNZ was a half a boatlength behind. Alinghi was able to leverage that into an 8 second advantage at the first mark. Both boats screamed down the second leg under spinnakers. It was an amazing thing to watch. Alinghi was even able to extend their lead somewhat. Going up the third leg I lost sight of the boats as a big squall rolled through the course. The wind was up to 28 knots for a few minutes, but both boats came out of it alright and I had reestablished visual contact, which makes watching the race more enjoyable for me. A few minutes later, the station I was listening too (TV One) went to commercial. I took a moment to grab a drink of water. When I looked back, one of the boats was missing! I grabbed my binoculars to get a better look, and I could see Alinghi still sailing on. Then I noticed the black blob a little way behind and I could see the broken mast. Then TV One came back from commercial and explained what had taken place: TNZ went through a sequence of three big waves, and on leaping out of the water between the second and third, the slamming into the third wave was too much. A shroud had broken and the rig came tumbling down. Alinghi now lead 4-0.

Brad Butterworth said it correctly in the press conference later, about how you don’t like to win races that way. The question is, how did this happen? The picture is slowly coming into focus. TNZ has apparently been under tighter financial pressure than people had expected. They could only afford to build two race-quality masts, which meant that when they were training in a strong breeze they had to throttle back since they couldn’t risk any breakage. This lines up with their breaking the boom in Race 1 for essentially the same reason

• they hasn’t taken the time to determine the limits of their equipment. Ed Baird talked about the timing of setbacks like this. Alinghi had broken a mast, but they did it on a non-race day months ago. They also had four race-quality masts, not two.

Anyway, today’s racing was supposed to be Race 5, but it was canceled due to lack of wind. This is starting to disturb me. I’ve got a cheap non-refundable non-changeable ticket to fly to Christchurch to start my South Island trip for Monday. If Alinghi doesn’t win tomorrow, I’ll have to delay my trip and fly stand-by when the Cup is finally completed. Ah well, it is important to be able to adapt to conditions outside of one’s control. I had built plenty of extra time into the South Island trip so I can afford a couple of days of waiting for the end of racing.

Oh yeah. A few days ago (Tuesday) I scratched off another item from my ‘To Do’ list for Auckland. I went to Kelly Tarlton’s aquarium. This is a two part place, the first being Antarctica oriented, with a penguin enclosure and a snowcat ride and the second being a fish tank with a conveyor belt for people where you ride under an acrylic tube at the bottom of the tank. I’m glad I did it, but it wasn’t worth the $25 they charged for it. I was especially disappointed how hard they made it to take pictures. This now leaves the Sky Tower, a walk around Devonport and a ride on either NZL-40 or NZL-41 as the only activities I haven’t done yet.