New Zealanders clinch spot against Oracle Team USA
Emirates Team New Zealand sped away from Sweden’s Artemis Racing on Bermuda’s Great Sound on Monday to advance to the America’s Cup match and another showdown with nemesis Oracle Team USA.
With unflappable 26-year-old Peter Burling at the helm, the Kiwis finally won a start against Artemis skipper Nathan Outteridge. Their 50-foot catamaran rose up on hydrofoils and showed its incredible speed in a 56-second, wire-to-wire victory that clinched the best-of-nine challenger finals at 5-2.
There were subdued celebrations aboard the Kiwi cat until a magnum of champagne arrived . Grinder-trimmer Blair Tuke, who teamed with Burling to win Olympic gold and silver medals, popped the cork and sprayed his mates.
The victory sets up a rematch of the epic 2013 America’s Cup, when Team New Zealand blew an 8-1 lead on San Francisco Bay and watched as Oracle Team USA’s Jimmy Spithill won eight straight races to retain the Auld Mug.
The match starts Saturday with Races 1 and 2. Oracle Team USA, owned by software billionaire Larry Ellison, needs to win seven races to keep the oldest trophy in international sports. Because Oracle won a bonus point by winning the qualifiers, Team New Zealand must win eight races.
In 2013, Oracle Team USA started at minus-2 after being penalized in the biggest cheating scandal in America’s Cup history. It still won.
A first attempt at Race 7 on Monday was abandoned at the 25-minute time limit with the boats crawling in barely a knot of wind.
In freshening breeze a few hours later, the Kiwis dominated.
“We definitely feel like we’re in great shape to take on Oracle now,” Burling said.
Oracle has been training on its own since winning the qualifiers on June 3. The American-backed boat beat Team New Zealand twice in the round-robins.
Artemis, led by Olympic gold medalists Outteridge of Australia and Iain Percy of Britain, looked good in practice races earlier this spring but didn’t find its stride until late in the trials. It rebounded from a 3-1 deficit to win four straight races against SoftBankTeam Japan to win its challenger semifinal, but too many unforced errors cost it against the Kiwis. Among them was Outteridge falling overboard in Race 3 on Saturday.
Team New Zealand brings a mix of new and old to this America’s Cup match. Skipper Dean Barker was sacked after the 2013 collapse and Burling came aboard as helmsman. Returning are wing trimmer-skipper Glenn Ashby and feisty syndicate CEO Grant Dalton.
The Kiwis were the lone wolf during this Cup cycle.
They joined Italy’s Luna Rossa in opposing an unprecedented midstream downsizing of the boats that was approved by the regatta organizers and other syndicates in 2015. The Italians were so incensed they dropped out after already investing millions of dollars in their boat design. The Kiwis stayed in, but their support for the Italians cost them a regatta in Auckland and with it, badly needed government funding.
And then there’s the “cyclor” grinding system. Rather than having the beefy grinders turn winches with their arms, ETNZ built four cycling stations into each hull to harness leg power to run the hydraulic systems used to trim the wing sail and operate the foils.
Among the sailing crew are Simon van Velthooven, an Olympic cycling bronze medalist, and Joe Sullivan, an Olympic rowing gold medalist.