Sailing: Cayard starts to stalk the Italians

Andrew Preece finds the America's Cup action hotting up in Auckland

AMERICA'S CUP life moved from the building shed to the race course yesterday as the second round-robin of the Louis Vuitton Cup to find the eventual challenger to face the New Zealanders got under way in Auckland.

Most of the 11 challengers had spent the last week frantically modifying their boats in the light of lessons learned in the first round-robin series, during which the single point available per race kept the stakes at a manageable level. Now, though, the winner of each race picks up four points, and the action is getting decidedly serious. Dropped races at this stage could make a significant difference when the cut is made at the end of round three to establish the six boats who will go forward to the semi-final in January.

Prada continued their winning ways, despatching the luckless Swiss Be Happy crew with relative ease despite sailing the final downwind leg with their mainsail pinned in the middle of the boat after a topmast backstay failed. With more hours behind them and more dollars in the hardware, the Italians are cruising and have yet to drop a race, though things will doubtless get tougher when the likes of Paul Cayard, Dennis Conner and Ed Baird get their campaigns up to full fighting speed. By contrast the Swiss have yet to win a race, with the triple gold-medallist Jochen Schumann struggling to come to terms with the twin-ruddered boat that both he and his team reckon will be fast if only they can get the hang of sailing it.

The French are also hoping for more speed after serious modification work. Their boat boat was treated to a new keel, keel winglets, rudder and back end during the last week. On yesterday's showing the improvements have yet to be manifested, as Conner's Stars & Stripes beat them by nearly a minute. With Conner's longtime sailing partner Tom Whidden drafted into the afterguard, Stars & Stripes is looking favourite to make the move out of the relegation zone, vying with Dawn Riley's America True campaign for the honour of the top single-boat syndicate. Riley, however, lost her American derby with Young America after her helmsperson, John Cutler, won the start only to lose the lead on the first shift to the New York Yacht Club's Baird, who then went on to win by 33 seconds.

Not so close was the Abracadabra's drubbing by the Japanese Asura. John Kolius' Hawaii-based team have two boats but have been the surprise non- performer of the series so far, and lost to Peter Gilmour, skipper of Asura, by more than three minutes.

Cayard made similarly easy work of the Spanish as he herded Bravo Espana towards a disastrous early start before powering away at full speed as the Spanish floundered to record his first, ominously easy, four points.

Today the interesting confrontations will be the improving Nippon Challenge meeting Prada, Cayard's AmericaOne versus Riley's America True in a San Francisco local derby, and the Young Australia crew - now sailing a hastily-chartered and they hope faster ex-OneAustralia - against the Swiss.