UNBELIVEABLE!~

By now you all should know that Alinghi won the cup but WHAT A RACE! Steve and Caroline Cutler and I had lunch at the Foredeck Club - the 1st time in this campaign that I could get over there for lunch and what a race to watch. If you didn't see it this is the run down:

Even start - ETNZ is able to pull ahead but not enough to cross over to the right side of the course. NZ does a leebow that Alinghi defended PERFETLY. They got to the top mark and luffed NZ head to wind and both boats were almost stopped in the water and were able to round mark 1 just ahead. Downwind Alinghi did a jibe in a spot that to me was too close to NZ and then they lost their wind a bit and bobbled the spinnaker and NZ was able to sail over them and round the bottom gate ahead. Alinghi once again went to the right and were able to catch up and hold NZ off. Then at the top mark ETNZ tried to tack above layline and then duck below Alinghi with an idea of coming up and still rouding in front. They foreshadowed their angle and Ed Baird was able to line them up, hold his course on Starboard and give a penalty to NZ. He won that dog fight. So now last leg and Alinghi 100m ahead and ETNZ with a penalty. You would THINK that it was all over. The wind dies and comes forward. Both boats were reaching with spinnakers. ETNZ was 1st with thier jib up and before ALinghi started to hoist the jib their spinnaker pole blew off the mast and slammed into the middle of the boat. They recovered but ETNZ was ahead and now that they were with jibs but still on a downwind leg they only had to complete their tack - no big circle!
They did the tack and tacked back and eaked over the line at the same time as Alinghi - EVERYONE held their breath for about 5 seconds before the Blue Flag went up signaling that Alinghi had just won the America's CUp by 1 second. HOLY CRAP - it was amazing.

We are going over in the tender to watch the prize giving now will post pix later.

Also funny note - the staff at the Foredeck club were so excited they forgot to bring us our bill. Why were they so excited? Because this is their last day of work now!