But it is a full day for both Alinghi and the BMW ORACLE Racing teams. For BMW ORACLE Racing there is no room for complacency and CEO Russell Coutts warned yesterday there it was too early to draw many conclusions from their Race 1 win yesterday. Similarly both Ernesto Bertarelli (SUI) and chief designer Rolf Vrolijk (NED) emphasised yesterday that they would take time to analyse the data from yesterday’s race before planning how they would try to optimise Alinghi 5 better for tomorrow’s scheduled Race 2.
Both Bertarelli and Vrolijk pointed out that the catamaran was moded for much lighter winds than they encountered during Race 1 yesterday, and the technical team have been seen working hard since early this morning.

Weather forecasts for tomorrow point to a scenario not dissimilar to Friday’s with an early offshore breeze from the NNE backing right round to the SW with 7-8 knots of average windspeed expected around midday.

The Race 2 course is the 39 miles Deed of Gift triangle course of three legs of equal length 13 miles. Start sequence is around 1000hrs.

Ernesto Bertarelli (SUI), team president and helmsman Alinghi (SUI): “We will replay the race and see if we can mode the boat slightly differently. I think these boats sail very differently in different conditions. There is still a race to go. In more breeze we will be pushing the limit of what this boat can do. In less breeze maybe we have more of a chance.”

Russell Coutts (NZL) CEO and afterguard BMW ORACLE Racing Team (USA):
“ I think it is early days. I said before the series that you wont be able to draw conclusions from the first few minutes of these races….but how about that wing….??  It looked pretty good from where I was sitting today. I think the team did a good job. The guys on board sailed a really nice race, pretty much faultless. They had a few problems at the start, that can happen in these boats, but we are very, very happy with where we are, but we are only a tiny way into this series now. There is so much more work to do. We know we are up against the best team out there and we are certainly not going to take our foot off the throttle. We are going to try and improve our performance further.”