After the doubts, the reaction came. And what a response! Team New Zealand overwhelmed Ineos Britannia this Friday after Black Wednesday (they suffered two defeats) that settled the final of the America’s Cup. The Kiwis did not want any more surprises and were extremely forceful on the fifth day of the final match. Two more victories in one pocket to start putting the Hundred Guineas Jug in the other. With the score at 6-2, the Kiwis are just one win away from lifting the title for the third consecutive time and becoming a legendary team this Saturday on the sixth day of Barcelona. Never before has the same team won three editions in a row in 173 years of competition.
The competition had an extra ingredient because the weather prepared an uncomfortable surprise for the AC75. The wind initially blew from the west, from west to east, in an unusual scenario for this edition. When the wind comes from land, it is more irregular because the orography of the city itself generates turbulence that ends up reaching the high seas. And in a competition in which the crew lives by finding good wind gusts, the wind irregularity was uncomfortable for sailing. “At times we were sailing with gusts of eight knots, and at others, 13”, explains Nathan Outteridge, helmsman of Team New Zealand. The regulations allow the competition to be held at between 6.5 and 21 knots, and the Kiwis always noticed where the sections with good pressure were hidden.
The British dream of a comeback ended soon. After winning the two races on Wednesday and turning a painful 4 to 0 into a worthy 4 to 2, the Ineos Britannia fans appealed to the spirit of San Francisco (United States), the city where Ben Ainslie, helmsman and leader of the British team, achieved In 2013, they turned around a 1-8 deficit to win the Copa del América final by 9-8 in one of the greatest comebacks in the history of top-level sport.
But American dreams do not exist in Catalonia because Barcelona is not San Francisco, and desires vanished in the little more than 1.5 nautical miles of the regatta course. After only completing the first leg of the two races (the first was held over six legs and the second, eight), Team New Zealand had already disappeared from Ainslie’s radar, unable to close a gap that was gradually widening. Nothing to do.
The final difference between both teams exceeded one minute in the first test and remained at 55 seconds in the second, a astronomical distance in a final of the largest sailing competition in the world. “It has been a perfect regatta, without errors; We are sailing like never before,” admitted Ray Davis, New Zealand coach on the television connection during the final regatta. On Saturday, history awaits you.
