Louis Vuitton Act 12 - Day 4: Preview

Good morning from Valencia where once again we start the day with bright sunny skies and a repeat of the previous days weather patterns (I fear this is getting repetitive). According to Chris Bedford's weather forecast, the meteorologist of BMW Oracle sees the typical thermal breeze picking up in the afternoon, building up to 13 to 16 knots.

After yesterday's thrilling match racing action, with a good number of exciting confrontations both in the top of the leaderboard as well as in its middle, today's racing will certainly be calmer but nonetheless interesting pointwise. There will certainly be a fight for fifth place overall - and leadership in the second group - between Mascalzone Latino - Capitalia Team and Desafío Español. The Italian team stands alone now in fifth place, one point ahead of the Spanish and their match today will probably help clarify the situation. The Italians have a lighter schedule since their second race is against Areva Challenge, in theory weaker. On the contrary, Desafío Español face the almighty Emirates Team New Zealand in their second race, certainly not a pleasant prospect. If Mascalzone Latino - Capitalia Team can fight and manage to score two points today, their position will become much more secure.

Further down the leaderboard Victory Challenge will face Team Shosholoza, in another fight to avoid falling into the third group. None of these two challengers is happy with its performance. The South Africans committed an unforgiving error yesterday, while the heavily modified boat of the Swedes, SWE-63, seems to be sticky and slow.

Nevertheless, it will be very difficult today to turn the world's eyes even a little bit to Valencia, given the number of very important soccer clashes that take place in the world cup in Germany.

Louis Vuitton Act 12
Leaderboard at end of Day 3
Division	Team	Points
First	Alinghi	6
	Emirates Team New Zealand	6
	BMW Oracle	5
	Luna Rossa	5
Second	Mascalzone Latino - Capitalia Team	4
	Desafío Español	3
	+39 Challenge	2
	Team Shosholoza	2
Third	Victory Challenge	2
	Areva Challenge	1
	United Internet Team Germany	0
	China Team	0