SPLIT DECISIONS

It was a day of snakes and ladders, winners and losers, calculated gambles and multiple crossing of fingers. Day 4 at the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup 2007 was the trickiest yet as the wind lurched from one point on the compass to another leaving tacticians and strategists with plenty of decisions to make. Even the local knowledge gurus found it hard to keep a grip on proceedings.

Once again, all four divisions undertook the same course - after a 2-hour delay while the Race Committee allowed some breeze to build and settle. Build is relative, as the four divisions set off into a 5-knot easterly to a windward mark. Thereafter the 25 nautical-mile course took the yachts to Monaci rocks, down the southern shore of Caprera to a mark at Secca tre Monti before taking them back to the original windward mark, down into Golfo Pevero and the finish off Porto Cervo.

By the end of the day some intriguing contests were set up for the final day tomorrow - where a fifth completed race will bring a discard into play. In Racing, Morning Glory (GER) and Loki (AUS) are locked on 9 points, with the German boat in pole on countback having logged two wins to the Australian boats single bullet. In the Wally Division, a point separates J One (GBR) and Indio (ITA) after they finished second and first respectively. Cruising Division sees Ranger leading by two points from Velsheda whilst, in the Mini Maxi Division, Atalanta II (ITA) appears to have an unassailable lead of 8 points over OPS 5 after her disappointing 6th place today.

As for the race itself, the initial windward leg was not straightforward. The right side of the course seemed to pay as Alfa Romeo (NZL) came back from the left hand side to pass behind Morning Glory (GER) - possibly the only time Hasso Plattner's 86-foot canting-keeler has been ahead of Neville Crichton's 100-foot canting-keeler. Alfa had edged into a sub-boatlength lead by the windward mark, where the only real difference between the yachts was the technique for hoisting the reaching spinnakers. Alfa - click, whirr, made! Morning Glory - spin, spin, spin, spin, made! Hydraulic power versus manpower. Neither seemed to have the edge - a credit to the burly grinders on the maxZ86 - as the kites popped in unison. Rambler and Titan XII followed - both demonstrating admirably that brute force is still an effective means of raising sails. Having started racing at 13.45, Alfa rounded the mark at 14.10 - it would take her another two and a half hours to complete the course as the wind began to play tricks.

In the Wally Division, Claus Peter Offen's Y3K (GER) led up the first leg and established a big lead over Magic Carpet Squared after choosing the favoured right side of the course. Three Wally 80s - Highland Fling, Aori and Indio - along with Jean Charles Decaux's J One all rounded together. The first Mini Maxi was Carlo Puri Negri's Atalanta II, with Out of Reach, Edimetra and All Smoke in hot pursuit. Ghost led the Cruising Division around with Velsheda showing a clean pair of highly polished heels to Ranger.

It was shortly after this that the fun began. As the yachts closed in on the lighthouse at Monaci, where they would make a left turn south towards the channel, the wind swung from the east to the north northwest causing a flurry of dropped spinnakers and hoisted jibs as one by one the yachts entered the new breeze. Once at Monaci, the best sailing of the day began. Unsurprisingly, Alfa Romeo led the fleet past the rocky outcrop and proceeded to reach down the shoreline of Caprera, with Morning Glory and Rambler about 10-minutes behind. Alfa arrived at Secca tre Monti at 15.10 moving like a freight train in 14-knots of northwesterly. Sliding round the hidden reef undertaking a controlled, but high speed gybe she headed off towards the gap between Isola delle Bisce and Capo Ferro - known to the crews as Bomb Alley. Crichton and crew, with three time Olympic medallist Ben Ainslie on board to help with the helming, seemed blissfully unaware of the bomb that was about to drop.

As Morning Glory and Rambler drag raced into the mark some 10-minutes later, it looked like they were in for a cracking race home. But up ahead, Alfa Romeo had come to an apparent standstill just before the crucial gap, as Michael Coxon one of the afterguard described, "we got stuck where there was a transition between the two winds which were fighting each other between the island (Isola delle Bisce) and the mainland. We were just stuck in the middle and we couldn't break from the old wind to the new wind.. I think we just sat there for around 40 minutes."

On board Titan XII, tactician Ben Mitchell watched what unfolded ahead with keen interest, "we could see coming into Golf (Secca tre Monti) Alfa Romeo in the cut, stopped, and with the wind 180 degrees to what we had. Morning Glory and Rambler were both holding high to go around Alfa, so we picked their lane and then when they ran out of wind we tried to split the difference between the boats ahead and aim at the next mark as much as possible. Then the breeze came in from the south and we went south whilst they (Glory & Rambler) elected to go out to sea. Going south turned out to be a better track for us. We rounded Charlie (the old windward mark) a little bit behind Alfa Romeo and Morning Glory but in front of Rambler." Summarising the race, in which Titan XII finished third on the water and on handicap (15 seconds behind Loki), Mitchell continued, "it was a pretty tricky race. The wind came out of all around the clock, so it was trying conditions for the crews on all boats and certainly frustrating for the bigger boats because they got far enough ahead and then they'd stop. Being a little bit smaller boat we got a chance to see what happened and bounce of their misfortune."

A similar story unfolded in the Wally Division. Y3K barreled into Secca tre Monti and lit off with Magic Carpet close behind her. Like Alfa, before her Y3K hit trouble, as tactician Thomas Jungbluth explained, "we had two different wind systems, the old wind from the east side and the new wind from the west side and in the middle was nearly nothing. It was very difficult to pass through the two wind systems fighting against each other.It's like sailing toward a wall, suddenly you stop and you wait until the other boats are equal to your position. That's all about sailing."

Jens Christiansen on J One - currently leading the division by one point at the end of today after finishing second on handicap - described what he saw, "coming into the bay and the mark before Bomb Alley, we were discussing whether we should go outside or inside. In principle we had decided to go outside, but then in the last minute we decided to go inside because we saw Alfa Romeo and Favonius were picking up some breeze in there. We thought maybe we have a chance and that was just a straight line, so we went through there and picked up the wind quite well and that was good." By the time the two Js - Ranger and Velsheda - arrived, the opposite tactic paid off.

At Secca tre Monti, Ranger was just ahead with Velsheda on her hip. A truly stirring sight as they raced into the mark with their polished metalwork glinting in the sun and spray foaming off the bows. Ranger chose to go high and avoid the cut. Velsheda chose the cut. A telling split decision, which saw Ranger eventually beat her sister on the water by some 10-minutes and comfortably on handicap too.

Similar tales of woe and glory abounded throughout the fleet as first one group of yachts was favoured and then another. In the Mini Maxi class, Atalanta II could hold her head high as she managed to lead her division around the course from start to finish and follow this with a win on handicap.

The Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup runs from September 2nd to September 8th. Racing finishes tomorrow, Saturday, with the first start scheduled for 1140 CET. From the most luxurious, through the most traditional, to simply the fastest monohulls afloat today, the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup is nothing if not an astonishing line up of sailpower.

For more information about the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup 2007 including entry lists and results please visit www.yccsmaxi.com.

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CURRENT PROVISIONAL STANDINGS
Place Boat Name Owner Nation, R1-R2-R3-R4-Points

Racing
1. MORNING GLORY Hasso Plattner GER, 1-3-1-4-9.0
2. LOKI Stephen Ainsworth AUS, 2-1-4-2-9.0
3. TITAN XII Tom & Dotti Hill (USA) 4-2-3-3-12.0

Cruising
1. RANGER RSV Ltd USA, 1-3-1-1-6.0
2. VELSHEDA Turbat Inv. Ltd GBR, 2-2-2-2-8.0
3. VIRIELLA Vittorio Moretti ITA 3-4-5-4-16.00

Mini Maxi
1. ATALANTA II Carlo Puri Negri ITA, 2-1-2-1-6.0
2. OPS 5 Massimo Violati ITA, 1-6-1-6 -14.0
3. ALL SMOKE Gunther Herz 3-5-5-2-15.0

Wally
1. J ONE Jean Charles Decaux GBR, 1-2-2-2-7.0
2. INDIO Andrea Recordati ITA, 2-4-1-1-8.0
3. DARK SHADOW Antexis Ltd 5-1-7-3-16.0

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