There’s only one certainty for OneWorld Challenge and Team Dennis Conner as they head into their Quarterfinal Repechage match. The first team to lose four races will be eliminated from Louis Vuitton Cup 2003.

OneWorld and Team Dennis Conner square off in a best-of-seven series beginning tomorrow. The winner advances to the semifinals where they’ll meet the winner of the Prada Challenge-Victory Challenge repechage match.

The repechage format is new to the Louis Vuitton Cup. A repechage is a heat of a competition in which eliminated contestants have another chance to qualify for the next round or final. The format helps keep strong teams who’ve had a bad day in the competition longer.

The format’s certainly helping OneWorld, which would’ve been eliminated after the quarterfinals in a format lacking the repechage round. OneWorld finished the round robins as the No. 3 seed, based on its total points, and was among the top four teams in the double elimination bracket.

The team representing the Seattle Yacht Club stormed through Round 1 with a perfect 8-0 record. The multi-national team flying the red, white and blue of the U.S. now stands at 13-7, having lost four close matches to Oracle BMW Racing in the quarterfinals by an average of 20 seconds.

“While the results in the quarterfinals aren’t lost on us, rather than having a psychological scar, it’s a mark in the sand that has been well analyzed, reviewed, looked at and learned from,” says OneWorld skipper Peter Gilmour. “You’re going to see a very, very polished OneWorld team.”

While OneWorld comes in a bit deflated, Team Dennis Conner, representing the New York Yacht Club, enters the match feeling the best about themselves since mid-July, shortly before their two-boat testing program ended off Long Beach, Calif.

Those positive feelings of forward progress were washed away on July 23 when the team watched its second race boat, USA-77, sink. Suddenly, the two-boat team was reduced to one boat as USA-77 underwent major reconstruction that included a new bow from the chainplates forward.

Fresh off a solid, 4-1 beating of GBR Challenge in the quarterfinals, Team Dennis Conner has improved their overall record to 10-11. They’ve shown decidedly more confidence, the direct result of having a faster boat under them.

For those reasons, OneWorld’s choice of Team Dennis Conner for the repechage round confounded Syndicate Row prognosticators. Valid arguments could’ve been made for OneWorld to pick either No. 4 seed Prada or No. 5 Victory.

In the end OneWorld, the highest remaining seed at No. 3, chose the lowest remaining seed, No. 7 Team Dennis Conner.

“Nobody likes to be picked. It’s a humbling thing in a way, but at the same time our team has taken it as a chance to get a little mad,” Read says. “These guys think we’re the worst of the heap, so let’s go prove them wrong. Frankly, we think we have the ability to do that. So we’ve taken it as an opportunity to galvanize the team a little more, and let’s try to show these guys they made a big mistake.”

Both teams said that they’ve carried out “planned work” in the short time since the quarterfinals ended last Monday. Although they wouldn’t be specific on the changes, they did acknowledge that they’ll be using new sails for the round.

And Team Dennis Conner’s USA-77 was seen sporting “bat wings” as it returned to ViaductHarbour today after practicing. The wide wings affixed to the top spreaders help support the top of the genoa leach because battens aren’t allowed in overlapping headsails.

It’s nearly impossible to predict how these two American teams will match-up on the water as USA-67 and USA-77 have never met.

Sailing USA-67, OneWorld beat Team Dennis Conner twice in the round robins, winning by a combined 2 minutes and 40 seconds. Team Dennis Conner sailed its first boat, USA-66, in those races, which helmsman Read says was not up to the task.

Studying the elapsed times, Team Dennis Conner averaged 1 hour, 53.076 minutes in Rounds 1 and 2, while OneWorld averaged 1 hour, 49.916 minutes.

In the quarterfinals, Team Dennis Conner’s new USA-77 had an average elapsed time of 2 hours, 1.13 minutes. OneWorld, sailing USA-65, had an average time of 2 hours, 1.782 minutes.

Although both are staring at the precipice of elimination and extra time to shop for the holidays, they don’t plan to change their sailing styles.

“We plan on sailing our style and hope its good enough. To change now, that would be the kiss of death,” Read says.

“It’s a boat race,” Gilmour says. “When you distil it down to its simplest form, sailing well in a boat race is what we all try to do."