I've been watching them all and enjoying my Virtual Spectator program as well. I've been watching or following Cup racing since the days of Intrepid and Buss Mossbacher when it was far less professional and a hundred times more boring! And on that note..........

This particular match is very rare in the entire history of the Cup, including the J-Boats of the 30's because it is one of the very few where I truly believe that the boat has been taken out of the equation. In terms of overall speed under all conditions and points of sail, there is very little in it. Oracle has a slight edge in light breeze and downwind, but it's not any more than the tiny advantage the Swiss boat has upwind or in a breeze. There are good and bad points for each boat but as I said, they are almost exactly even.

Where the real difference comes is where it should and that's between the crews and afterguards. Both in these cases are excellent and yet have made a number of mistakes, some large, some small. How well the opposing boat takes advantage of the errors is the difference in these races so far with the Swiss boat holding the advantage in fewer errors and better advantage made of the American mistakes. For all the talk of the spinnaker pole disaster, I thought this last race showed another huge error by the Oracle afterguard instead of the deck crew.

They had taken the Swiss further and further out to the edge of the course on that one beat and then for some ungodly reason let them back to the middle where Alinghi was quick to turnaround the loss to a gain. I suppose that someone on Oracle saw better wind back towards the center or something, but in match racing when you are controlling the other boat to the point that Oracle was, the last thing you do is look for better pressure! Geeziz, I was in shock! Alinghi would have been forced into at the least a double tack at the mark with the chances for crew error as well as a slow set to downwind. Oracle could have damn near have sunk and won. But they let the Swiss boat back to the center and as the breeze increased giving Alinghi a slight edge, the race was over.

Right now the advantage on crew/afterguard goes to Alinghi but with a little more concentration I see no reason that Oracle cannot go ahead and win 4 in a row. That said, I doubt it happens. The main reason is the difference between Dickson and Coutts, excitable and aggressive versus cold and calculating. We'll see!!!

The statements made post race are all talking about Alinghi's superior speed, but if you watched that race and have ever raced a sailboat, then you know it's BS.

Spaw