AMERICA'S CUP: Larry Ellison's Oracle BMW Racing moved a step closer to the final of the Louis Vuitton Cup when Chris Dickson and Peter Holmberg steered the yacht to a third successive victory over Craig McCaw and Paul Allen's OneWorld in the semi-final repechage.From Bob Fisher in Auckland

They were aided by two massive errors by OneWorld before the match had even started.

The Seattle syndicate's 23-year-old helmsman James Spithill was hugely aggressive in the pre-start manoeuvres but he was up against the world's top-ranked match racer, Holmberg, who confidently covered his every move and inflicted a penalty on the young helmsman.

It resulted from an incident as the two 80ft America's Cup-class boats, in usual fashion, went head-to-head, side-by-side, in what is referred to as the dial-up.

Ian Burns, the Oracle navigator, said: "We were lucky not to collide as the boats tend to get sucked together."

Peter Gilmour, the OneWorld skipper, said: "Thirty seconds before we were penalised, we knew it was close.

"It's one of those situations that occurs and that's life. James was obviously annoyed but he got over it very quickly after the finish and started thinking about tomorrow."

Spithill did enough later to trap Holmberg well short of the line as the final seconds to the start ticked away. But his second error took OneWorld over the line a second early.

Spithill, an Australian, had set up OneWorld for a port-tack start but there appeared to be a difference between the time being called to him on board and the time counted to the race officer on the committee boat.

The return to the line was painful but necessary.

Carrying a penalty did not disturb Spithill, although being behind put him at a strategic disadvantage, one which Dickson capitalised upon.

Oracle covered almost every move that OneWorld made and tended to draw ahead on most legs, but on two occasions OneWorld edged in front.

At the second mark OneWorld had closed to within eight seconds. When Oracle stormed away upwind, the challenge from OneWorld was at an end and Oracle-BMW Racing finished 55 seconds ahead after OneWorld had taken her penalty turn.

Oracle-BMW Racing now leads by 3-0, needing only one more victory to progress to the Louis Vuitton Cup final and meet the Swiss Alinghi.

That could be an all-New Zealand affair - both skippers, Dickson and Russell Coutts, have represented their home country in previous America's Cups - but the Australian Gilmour claimed last night: "You haven't seen the best of us yet on the racecourse and I certainly hope the best is yet to come."

Dickson said: "Our task is to focus on winning that one race. We will be trying our best to do that tomorrow."

Guardian Service