Welcome to live updates of races 3 & 4 of the Louis Vuitton Cup finals series in San Francisco. We had another day of drama yesterday when Team New Zealand suffered a hydraulic breakage while leading by 400 metres with one leg to one. That handed Italy’s Luna Rossa victory and levelled the series at 1-1 before the third race was postponed due to high winds.
That means we have two races today despite the fact it’s a reserve day – and an earlier start time as well with race 3 beginning at 7.10am NZT.
The current-adjusted wind limit for today is 19.6 knots to allow for the ebb tide, and the breeze is expected to sit in the 12-17 knot range in the early afternoon.
Principal race officer John Craig said he is hopeful of getting through two incident free races today, given we are yet to see two boats finish a race in the finals.
Dana reports.
Despite already withdrawing from the race, Kiwi team received a protest from the regatta director for receiving assistance from their chase boat and support crew while the race was still on-going. Dana Johannsen reports in he race preview.
The Protocol for the 34th America's Cup prevents teams from receiving assistance until the race is terminated - a rule put in place to ensure teams complete the race where possible and do not receive any advantage from having extended time to prepare their boat for the next race given the short turnaround between races.
The rule was under review at the time of the protest, but Team NZ were still required to front up and explain their infraction. They argued they needed to effect emergency repairs to prevent their boat from drifting out beneath the Golden Gate Bridge in the current.
The international jury agreed and Team NZ received no further penalty.
All teams have now agreed to amend the Protocol in the interests of safety to allow teams to effect emergency repairs during races.
Dana reports.
Some brekaing news from San Francisco...Dana Johannsen is reporting that Oracle will have to front a jury over allegations of using illegal weights during the AC45 series.
We are about 15 minutes from the start of race 3. How's this one going to play out?
Welcome to live updates of races 3 & 4 of the Louis Vuitton Cup finals series in San Francisco. We had another day of drama yesterday when Team New Zealand suffered a hydraulic breakage while leading by 400 metres with one leg to one. That handed Italy’s Luna Rossa victory and levelled the series at 1-1 before the third race was postponed due to high winds.
WND Wind 250 at 17.9 kts, 19.9 kts peakby America's Cup Racing via twitter 8/19/2013 6:54:42 PM