Kiel gives iShares Cup a warm welcome for Round 4

The racing area on the Kieler Forde is just yards from the shoreline and only a few minutes from the city centre, so plenty of spectators gathered this morning to watch the fleet of 10 Extreme 40s as they made their final preparations before kick-off tomorrow. Before racing the iShares team put on a great show, with Gerhard van Geest "kiteboarding" behind the boat to get some great jumps in.

"Going upwind the hardest part was keeping the pressure on the line because the Extreme 40's speed was so various, so it was hard on the arms! But once we were up to speed I could make jumps and it was good fun. Must've been my biggest kite I've ever flown!" enthused Gerhard afterwards.

The fleet then had two short practice races on a triangular course set across the busy Kiel canal, the high-performance Extreme 40s joining everything from children's Optimists to massive ferries on the bustling waterway. Tommy Hilfiger rejoins the iShares Cup circuit at Kiel and had two celebrities - local actor and TV presenters Janine Reinhardt and Kostja Ullmann - on board for the practice day. The Tommy crew got off to a great start by leading the first race virtually all the way round. But many sailors think winning the practice race is bad luck for the rest of the regatta, so Tommy skipper Randy Smyth didn't cross the finish line - leaving Oman Sail to take the first practice race win.

"I would've carried on but some of my guys have got a lot of superstition, I had Stan and Jonathon saying: "You can't finish!" so we didn't cross the line. And if they're happy then I'm happy," explained Randy. "This venue seems made for Extreme 40s, you've got spectators, it's close in, you've got wind. But it was going good for us. The main thing really is that we've made a lot of improvements in our team work, marks and tacks and gybes, just basic stuff that we really were not all that good at back in Hyères. If you can get your mechanics down then you can race the boat."

The first race was also unlucky for series leaders TEAMORIGIN, who tried to take a route close inshore and ran aground, damaging their centreboard. "Basically we were going upwind and there was a cardinal [navigation mark], and we chose to go inside it despite knowing what the cardinal says, thinking it was probably going to be okay. But we hit something steel in the water and that was it, and stopped dead, breaking the centreboard," explained TEAMORIGIN tactician Pete Greenhalgh.

The British team currently have just a one point lead over America's Cup defenders Alinghi, and will be hoping to extend that when racing begins for Round 4 of the iShares Cup tomorrow. "All we need do is just have a sensible day and come out on top at the end of the regatta. We just need to keep chipping away at it. We want to win the event, that's the goal."

Second-placed Alinghi were also caught out by the changeable winds on the Kiel racecourse in the second race, after leading for the first lap they gybed over to the middle of the course, and iShares came storming through to take the win.

"Today the wind was variable and shifty off the Kiel shoreline," said Race Director Alan Hillman. "It was a bit snakes and ladders, all about where the gusts and shifts came through."

Tomorrow racing for the iShares Cup gets underway with up to six races scheduled, starting at 14.30. "We're going to have a good breeze of about 10 knots," forecast Alan Hillman. "It'll be great for the teams to have a good warm up and shake out the cobwebs, get into the swing of things before Saturday and Sunday when the sun will come out."