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Team New Zealand tackle some big seas - Source: Photosport
Louis Vuitton Trophy, Race Day 3
This has been a seriously weird day from a yachting point of view.
Fickle has become the watchword for the wind here but today it produced some really bizarre stuff.
Rugged up for the northerly blowing off the now snow covered Alps behind Nice, I was covering the first race between Azzura from Italy and BMW Oracle Racing.
First was the false start, the race postponed seconds away from the start gun.
The restart set up a great duel and it was neck and neck for all of three minutes before Azzura hooked into a puff and took off.
From then on the wind went seriously awry. The third leg was a one tack beat and for the finish the boats ended up beating as well.
The Italians were thrilled to have beaten the Americans who had billionaire boss Larry Ellison on board. In their hearts though they would know that it had been a lottery.
Restart
And that was certainly the case for Emirates Team New Zealand too. Dean Barker won the start against the Synergy team from Russia who were over the line early anyway and had to return to restart.
Now normally that would have been race over, the Kiwis sailing away to victory. Not in these conditions. The Russians picked up a private breeze and carried it right past ETNZ and there was nothing they could do about it.
Barker battled back and the lead switched with the breeze but a hundred metres from the line the Russians appeared to have it in the bag.
Then, as my commentatary colleague Peter Lester pointed out, they hit the wall. The breeze fell out of their kite and they simply stopped dead.
The Kiwis know you never give up, that the show really isn't over until the overweight lady warbles, and their tenacity paid huge dividends as they carried their own private breeze down and around the hapless Russians.
At that stage I was just completing an interview with the Azzura skipper Francesco Bruni who was delighted to see what he thought was another underdog having its day.
Then when we looked back the Kiwis had pulled off their Houdini move and Bruni made the perceptive comment to sum up the day's racing - that it was like skiing in Australia in January.
And according to the weather forecast there's a lot more weirdness to come.
