New Zealand take 4-0 America’s Cup lead as British plot comeback
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Emirates Team New Zealand and Team INEOS Britannia compete in Race 4 of the America's Cup.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
BARCELONA – New Zealand took a dominant 4-0 lead over Britain in their America’s Cup defence on Oct 14, with the crews locked in a tight early tacking duel and close passes in the first downwind leg before the Kiwis took control to win the race.
The New Zealand crew ultimately managed to get slightly more performance out of their AC75 monohull Taihoro, piling the pressure on Britain during the closest race so far in the first-to-seven series against Ben Ainslie’s Britannia.
Ainslie’s team, who were still smarting from an umpire’s decision that went against them on Oct 13 in the pre-start, protested against the New Zealanders during a series of close crosses as the boats sped downwind.
“We are going to keep going and push all the way here, we can still come back from this,” Ainslie said on the America’s Cup live broadcast after the single scheduled race on Oct 14.
“It was a good race, we got the first cross but they’re just going well, really well. We have our moments but also moments where we’re losing a click... we can still come back.”
He said that a reserve day on Oct 15 would give the crew a good opportunity to work on ways to narrow the “click” in performance gap they were seeing against New Zealand’s boat.
Ainslie’s co-helm Dylan Fletcher said he was disappointed by the umpires’ decision on Oct 13, but the team – who are backed by British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos group – would “take a good look” and see where they could eke out the gains needed to win.
New Zealand’s ever-relaxed skipper Peter Burling, meanwhile, said that every win in Barcelona was “a super nice one”, adding that it had felt far more like a “boat race” on Oct 14 than it had the day before, when he expressed concern over a pre-start near miss.
“We ended up later than we thought but we did a good job getting a little trigger pull and just getting enough off that first boundary to keep in the race,” he said of the start of Race 4.
New Zealand’s co-helm Nathan Outteridge was also pleased with the win.
“We’ve made a step forward with the performance of the boat,” he said of their foiling AC75, which is manoeuvring cleanly and at speed.
Races 5 and 6 will take place on Oct 16, following a rest day. REUTERS
