Day 3 at Dubai

Day 3 of the Louis Vuitton Trophy Dubai – and it wasn’t a good day for Emirates Team New Zealand.

The team had only one race – in a dying breeze in the late afternoon gloom – against the Swedish entry Artemis.

The afterguard got the start they wanted to leeward, forcing Artemis to tack to the right of the course. Emirates Team New Zealand covered and from there controlled the beat, making small gains at each tack.

Then came a bad tack and Barker had to dip behind the Swedes. Both yachts tacked immediately: Emirates Team New Zealand on to starboard and Artemis on to port.

Tactician Ray Davies said: “We had right of way and we felt quite clearly that they had to respond and tack away or alter course.... It was a straight port-starboard incident they should have given way and we had to avoid them.

“From where we sat it was clearly a penalty.” The umpires felt otherwise and gave Artemis a green flag.

Ray Davies: “That put us in an extremely compromised position, dead downwind of Artemis and on  port tack.... on these short courses it’s hard to recover from that.”

And there was no recovery. Try as they might the team could not get past Artemis which finished with a margin of  21s.

Round robin 1 points after three days:

   1.  BMW ORACLE Racing, 6-0, 6 pts 

   2.  Emirates Team New Zealand, 3-2, 2.5 pts *

= 3.  Artemis Racing, 2-3, 2 pts 

= 3.  Synergy Russian Sailing Team, 2-3, 2 pts

= 3.  All4One, 2-4, 2 pts 

   6.  Mascalzone Latino Audi Team, 2-4, 1 pts *