AC35: Day 6, RR2 Race 9 – SWE v. USA

Artemis Racing v. ORACLE TEAM USA. Nathan Outteridge v. Jimmy Spithill. OTUSA has some sort of a pre-race technical problem, reportedly a broken rudder requiring the yacht to be towed back to their team base, the boat lifted out of the water, the rudder changed (or maybe both rudders), and the boat splashed and quickly towed back out on the race course just in time for the pre-start of their race with SWE. Did they hit one of Bermuda's famous large, slow, sea turtles during their pre-race practice?

OTUSA appear to be on the back foot the entire race. They have another lousy start, fully two boat lengths astern of Artemis at the horn, and from there it is essentially race over. SWE lead wire to wire, winning by :24. It's a badly needed win for SWE, helping to all but assure that they will not be in last place and get eliminate at the end of these Rounds Robin. And it drops OTUSA to a tie with NZL atop the leaderboard (in what appears to your Ed. to be the race for that all-important bonus point to be carried by the winner of this Round Robin phase into the Match).