It was windy - at last - and it produced some vintage match racing.
Emirates Team New Zealand just crossed ahead of surprise Russian package Synergy in a nailbiting light-wind race at the beginning of the day. At the end of the day, when the wind had picked up, Synergy stuck a penalty on the Kiwis, forcing Dean Barker into some daring defensive tactics. It resulted in a bizarre finale - and a collision that led to a late-night protest hearing.
BMW Oracle Racing was given harsh treatment for tacking in the water of All4One, resulting in a red-flag penalty.
Tom Burnham is also put on the spot about his views on the controversial Thierry Henry hand-ball incident in the recent World Cup qualifier against Ireland in the football.
© Franck Socha
It happens even to the best of them. After rigging up their gennaker sheets incorrectly, Team Origin's gennaker hour-glassed during the Louis Vuitton Trophy in Sardinia. SailJuice got Ben Ainslie's response afterwards: "Pretty frustrating. One little mistake which led to a couple more mistakes which led to a race-losing mistake...."
Peter Lester has just completed two weeks of radio commentary at the Louis Vuitton Cup in Nice. A great sailor in his own right, Lester tells Sailing Talk why he thinks Azzurra won, and why politics shouldn't get in the way of great sailing events taking place...
Mike Sanderson tells Sailing Talk why he thinks Team Origin has something pretty unique and special with the unbreakable bond of friendship that exists in the afterguard between Ben Ainslie, Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson....
The dynamic duo of Sailing Talk, Justin and Andy, meet up in Nice at the 2009 Louis Vuitton Trophy to look at the strengths and weaknesses of the eight teams, and ask why a series can't be a series, or a circuit, or a number of other words in the thesaurus...
