| | AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- New York's Young America lost to competition leader AmericaOne Friday, further hurting the team's chances of making the semifinals of the challenger series for sailing's America's Cup.
With only four races to run, the New York Yacht Club's syndicate
has fallen to ninth place in the standings and might miss the cut for
the semifinals, in which only the six top boats will compete.
Young America has been struggling since one of its two boats
cracked apart and almost sank during a race last month.
AmericaOne defeated Young America by 1 minute, 8 seconds for the 9-point win.
In light and shifty breezes on Auckland's Hauraki Gulf, the
French team Le Defi Francais jumped three places to take sixth by beating rival the
Spanish challenge at the start and building a big lead which
resulted in win by 4 minutes, 15 seconds.
In the day's closest race, America True defeated Japan's Nippon by 6 seconds to hold second place and stay within one victory of the leader.
In other races, Italy's Prada defeated Young Australia by 55
seconds to stay in easy reach of the finals; and Dennis Conner's
Stars and Stripes scored a technical win over the Swiss team, which
has withdrawn from the competition.
Young America skipper Ed Baird said the team was considering
shifting crew members' roles on board in an effort to improve the
team's performance.
"That's something we talk about every day," Baird said.
"We are struggling to get the points that we need, that is very clear. We are disappointed that we have lost a couple of races that
we would have hoped to have won this week, but ... we have four
races to go and we know we need to win them."
The four-month Louis Vuitton Cup regatta will decide which of 10
teams takes on defender New Zealand for sailing's most prized
trophy in a best-of-nine series starting in February. After the current round of racing, the top six teams will advance to another round-robin, then the two leaders will meet in a best-of-nine series to determine which team will face New Zealand in the nine-race America's Cup finals.
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ALSO SEE
Third-round schedule and results
How the competition works
Young America struggling for finals
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