'Victory Challenge' beleaguered by bad luck
Steve McMorran, Associated Press, Auckland
A Swedish crew member was injured when he fell through an open hatch in the latest of a series of incidents which have made the Victory Challenge syndicate the unluckiest so far at the America's Cup.
Mid-bowman Martin Krite suffered back injuries when he tumbled during a training sail on the Hauraki Gulf earlier this week.
Krite was rushed to the team base and taken by ambulance to an Auckland hospital, where he was held for several hours for precautionary treatment.
Victory Challenge spokesman Bert Willborg on Friday said Krite, 21, suffered no serious injuries but was in considerable pain. He still hopes to sail aboard the Swedish boat in the second round of the Cup challenger series starting Oct. 22.
Sweden finished the first round of challenger racing with a 3- 5 record from eighth place and a share of sixth place among nine teams.
That standing was considerably below pre-regatta expectations and came after it had won its first three matches. Though it can take some comfort from being tied with defending challenger champion Prada of Italy, it was listed before racing began as a clear top-four hope.
The Swedish challenge was troubled during the round robin by a serious structural failure before one race, a blown jennaker in another and a broken jib halyard in a third, which forced it to sail upwind legs without a headsail.
It lost to Prada, squandering a lead when it failed to follow standard practice and to cover the Italian team on an upwind leg. Prada picked up a wind shift and turned a deficit into an unassailable lead.
The Victory Challenge was founded by Swedish media entrepreneur Jan Stenbeck, who died in Paris, aged 59, a few weeks before racing began. Stenbeck's son Hugo has become the titular head of the team and has sailed in a guest role in all of its races to date.
Victory is expected to make a boat change for the next round, sailing the second and reportedly faster of its new Cup boats, SWE-73 or Orm. It sailed SWE-63, or Orn, in the first round robin.
The boat names are drawn from Nordic mythology. Orm is a serpent, Orn an eagle.
Victory had first-round wins over France's Le Defi, Italy's Mascalzone Latino and New York's Stars & Stripes. Of those teams only Stars & Stripes was ranked ahead of the Swedes after round on.
But Victory has taken heart from relatively narrow losses to the leading syndicates OneWorld of Seattle and Alinghi of Switzerland. Victory lost to OneWorld by less than a minute and to Alinghi by less than 30 seconds.
"I'm happy with the crew's work and what we've achieved," said project director Mats Johansson. "The defeats against OneWorld and Alinghi prove we are very close to the big teams.
"Sure, I'd have liked to have won against either GBR or Prada but we've still achieved what's expected of us. We won the first three races and even beat Stars & Stripes, who are sailing for the New York Yacht Club.
"We just can't afford to make mistakes and have the kind of bad luck we had in the first round."
One of the nine teams will be eliminated after the second round, leaving eight teams for the quarterfinals. The winner of the challenger series will face defender Team New Zealand in the America's Cup next February.