An amazing journey for us as a team

‘Serious structural issues’

Reclaiming the America’s Cup is a feeling of ‘‘great redemption and relief’’ for Glenn Ashby.

The 55-second win yesterday, sealing an overall margin of victory of 7-1, also went a long way to erasing the ghosts of 2013 for the syndicate.

In one of the biggest comebacks in sporting history, Team New Zealand were 8-1 up and one win from glory in San Francisco when Oracle mounted a monumental fightback.

Ashby is the only remaining crew member from the 2013 challenge and was delighted to prevail in the Cup match.

‘‘[2013] was absolutely brutal for the team, it was a hard pill to swallow. For myself and a lot of guys that are [still] with the team this time round it is great redemption and relief, to right the wrongs of the last campaign.

‘‘We obviously learned a lot from that and put our best foot forward for this campaign.’’

As the trimmer of Aotearoa’s As if their America’s Cup triumph wasn’t remarkable enough, Team New Zealand chief executive Grant Dalton has revealed they beat Oracle after suffering irreparable damage to their foils.

The damage occurred during the opening day of the challenger series finals against Artemis Racing when they were caught with their light air foils in heavy conditions.

But while they were able to manage the issue through to the end of the campaign, Dalton said it could have easily ended in disaster at any moment.

‘‘That was quite a big day for us, as well, because the guys looked after the boat and let it loose when

huge hi-tech wing sail, as well as skipper, Ashby played a pivotal role in Team New Zealand’s triumph. The 15-time multi-hull sailing they could and sailed it really intelligently,’’ Dalton said.

‘‘What I can tell you now, as a result of that day, we found some pretty serious structural issues with the daggerboards, because they had been taken so far out of range that they were basically letting go.

‘‘We’ve lived with this now since that day or since we found it, and they’ve been tested every night with ultrasound – the guys have been basically living here, doing it every night, and it has been growing,’’ Dalton said.

‘‘So every time we do a tack or a gybe or whatever, I’ve just been going ‘hold on, hold on’ and they have.’’

world champion from Australia had also done a huge amount of work behind the scenes as the team had to pick up the pieces after San Francisco and get another campaign going.

‘‘This has absolutely been an amazing journey for us as a team.

‘‘Personally it’s a feeling of relief at the moment and satisfaction that as a fantastic group of people and team we’ve actually been able to pull off the unimaginable against all odds.

‘‘From a few years ago, to regrouping and getting over late [to Bermuda] and scrambling and managing to pull it off, it’s an absolutely unbelievable feeling.’’

Ashby indicated the four years since 2013 had been far from simple but said that made their victory even sweeter.

‘‘There was huge debate at the time when we had to make a lot of those difficult decisions. We were just a very small tight core group of designers and sailors.

‘‘Together we threw it out there and all had to believe this was the right way forward. I just feel very fortunate to be involved with such a great group of people.’’