South Africa's Team Shosholoza caused a major upset in the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series after pulling off a 3 minute 49 second win over America's Cup defenders, Alinghi, in Auckland, New Zealand, on Tuesday.
The prestigious sailing regatta sees 10 teams battle it out on the waters of New Zealand for three weeks of 72 intense match races.
South Africa's celebrated victory came after three days of racing without a win. Praising the team a New Zealand Press Association reporter said "It wasn't so much the result, but the manner in which the South Africans downed their Swiss rivals, that was notable."
"Shosholoza's skipper Paulo Cian, and his crew dominated the start, getting the side they wanted, timing their run to the line with precision and crossing at speed," read the report. "They then read the light, shifty conditions superbly to increase their lead to more than 200m up the first beat. On the final run, Shosholoza moved ahead by more than 1km, a massive gap given that the courses being used are much shorter than for the America's Cup."
"The final margin was three minutes 49 seconds, the biggest by far of the regatta so far."
The race has been labelled as the worst defeat in Team Alinghi's history.
"A win like this gives us a lot of confidence going into the next round robin," said Shosholoza skipper Paolo Cian.
Commenting on their defeat, Alinghi navigator Juan Vila said, "Shosholoza sailed a perfect race It was very tricky out there and [they] did well to play the shifts and get the puffs right. We could do nothing but watch them sail away from us."
After a Wednesday rest-day, racing starts again on Thursday in the second round robin. Team Shosholoza will race China Team.
To find out more about this year's regatta visit: www.louisvuitton-pacificseries.com
For more information about South Africa's Team Shosholoza visit the team's offcial website.
Steuart has done some 500 talks on South Africa's progress since 1994 and SA's prospects for the future' 
