Iain Percy, skipper, +39, on scaring himself today:
Oh yeah. I think we nearly lost the mast a couple of times. One thing I keep on needing to remind myself is that it's safety first. When you're in the heat of the battle in these races, it's about not damaging the boat and more importantly not damaging people. I'm learning this lesson very quickly, particularly coming from small boats where the loads are never so big that they're dangerous. On a day like today the noise involved - it doesn't half bring it home to you the loads in these boats. You don't want something breaking and it killing someone. The real noise when you let out the mainsheet is deafening.
Eric Doyle, strategist, BMW Oracle, on beating Alinghi:
The high point was beating Alinghi. Things fell into place nicely to get ahead, and then their spinnaker blew out on the last run.
Eric Doyle, on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in the race against Luna Rossa:
I heard someone say we crossed the line two seconds ahead of them. But as we sailed by the finish, the lazy sheet on the spinnaker flipped out and hit the pin buoy. And so we had to take a penalty for that. That was a low point.
Cameron Appleton, strategist, K-Challenge, having to think hard about a positive moment in the day:
I'm not sure. A tough day all round. Nothing really went our way. I suppose it was good when we just pulled past Shosholoza doing 19.5 knots boatspeed for most of the run…(but) things weren't smooth on board our boat. We had some major problems.
Thierry Peponnet, skipper, K-Challenge, on learning from scratch:
We changed the crew between the two ACTs. All our heavy wind practice in Marseille we couldn't use because we've had too many changes with the crew.
Jochen Schuemann, strategist, Team Alinghi, on having higher expectations:
I hope it's not the potential for 2007, because we had a lot of breakdowns, and we need a lot of practice.
Jochen Schuemann, on the closeness of the 'Big Four':
We are all strong enough to beat each other. I think it's perfect for the event.
Geoff Meek, on relinquishing their lead to a five-second loss to K-Challenge:
The wind headed 10 degrees and increased 10 knots. They brought the wind with them, we didn't get the wind until they were on top of us.
Geoff Meek, on the South African's impressive boathandling:
Every now and again we can do it well, but we don't have consistency yet. Our crew have come a long way considering half of them hadn't sailed big boats until four months ago.
