Series won in spite of foil damage

WELLINGTON: Team New Zealand’s victory was all the more remarkable because it was done with badly damaged foils, it has been revealed.

Grant Dalton, in an interview with racing sailing journalists Martin Tasker and Peter Lester yesterday, said the damage to the foils occurred during the opening day of the challengers’ final against Artemis Racing.

Team New Zealand was caught out with its light foils in heavy conditions.

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

He said the team had to live with the damage, testing the foils every night.

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

Dalton also revealed the lightwind postponement during the challengers’ semifinals against Ben Ainslie Racing was a godsend, giving it time to carry out urgent repairs after a potentially catastrophic capsize.

‘‘The wing was pretty stuffed — it took us nine days to fix,’’ he said. ‘‘We could have raced the next day, but we probably would have got beaten, because we didn’t have all our fairings done.’’ — NZN