italiaspeed.com

Bob Oatley's Wild Oats XI won her first race in the Rolex Trophy series, but it was a hollow victory as Neville Crichton's Alfa Romeo missed the start after a plastic bag jammed the water intake, overheating the engine which also powers the hydraulics that control the canting keel and the primary and mainsail winches. The boys had to manually bring the canting keel into a fixed vertical position - itself a good safety exercise - and then replace the impeller," explained tactician Michael Coxon. "It took us 35 minutes and we were too late for the start."

However, the two, near identical Reichel/Pugh 98s, both competed in race four. For half the 11 nautical mile race it looked as if the newly launched Wild Oats would beat Alfa Romeo, which has been campaigned since late August. Helmsman Mark Richards won the start, accelerating Wild Oats away from the line to gain four vital boat lengths from Alfa Romeo which had made a late - and, as it turned out - wrong headsail choice. With the better choice of headsail for the fresher winds and lumpy sea conditions, Wild Oats outpaced Alfa Romeo on the first beat to windward, rounding just over a minute in front and, with her slightly bigger white spinnaker gained a little more on the downhill run.

At the leeward mark, however, Alfa Romeo's helmsman Adrian Stead capitalised on a mediocre spinnaker drop by the Wild Oats XI crew and gained an inside overlap that gave them the vital edge for the second beat to windward. It was still close, just 25 seconds at the windmark mark and again Wild Oat XI's bigger spinnaker enabled them to close the gap as they neared the finish line. "We managed a better gybe, the spinnaker filled faster and we picked up a wave to just cross the line in front," added Coxon. The winning margin was just seven seconds. On corrected time, Alfa Romeo, with a lower IRC rating handicap, also won by 1 minute 25 seconds, her third line and corrected time victory in the three races she has so far sailed.