Press Conference Highlights - Semi Finals Day One

Press Conference Highlights
Semi Final – Race Day One

On the panel:
Andrew Taylor – OneWorld Challenge
Francesco de Angelis – Prada Challenge
Chris Dickson – Oracle BMW Racing
John Barnitt – Alinghi

Andrew Taylor on the OneWorld crew’s reaction to the Arbitration Panel decision:
It’s motivated us. It’s probably helped us in regard to getting out on the water and getting on with the job. So no problem - back to business.

Francesco de Angelis on why Prada lost the race:
We had two opportunities during the race and somehow we weren’t able to get at least one of the two. When you let them go by you definitely can’t win the race. I think OneWorld sailed a very good and consistent race and we just didn’t use the opportunities we had.

John Barnitt on whether his afterguard got the side of the start they wanted:
I don’t know. They didn’t confer with me what the strategy was going to be. It was a pretty aggressive pre-start, a lot of action. It seemed like we were, from my perspective, pretty happy just to get away clean and to be into it. We were very pleased to get the right shift. Whether that was good fortune or foresight, I’m not quite sure.

Chris Dickson on his first loss as skipper of Oracle BMW Racing:
Sure, the loss has been a long time coming but Alinghi sailed very very well and they capitalised on little things very quickly and they didn’t open the door for us to even have a chance to come back. So nice job to the grinders and the guys you dragged around behind you, John. They sailed very very well. We hung in there quite nicely for a while but we know we’ve got to do better if we want to challenge them to take some points off them.

Chris Dickson on whether they would be willing to race in stronger conditions:
We don’t know exactly what speed the race committee is getting. From Oracle BMW’s point of view, we were happy to race in those conditions. We were happy to go racing yesterday.