Kiwis rout Oracle to claim Auld Mug

hamilton, bermuda» Redemption for a gutty crew of five New Zealanders and one Australian came on the turquoise waters of Bermuda’s Great Sound, four years and 3,000 miles removed from one of the most brutal collapses in sports.

With a mixture of ingenuity and national pride, Emirates Team New Zealand got back up after taking a gut punch for the ages, came to the Bermuda Triangle and ripped the America’s Cup right out of tech tycoon Larry Ellison’s hands.

“We’re on top of the world,” helmsman Peter Burling said Monday after steering the Kiwis’ incredibly fast 50-foot foiling catamaran to the clinching victory in the 7-1 rout of twotime defending champion Oracle Team USA.

As soon as the red-andblack Kiwi cat crossed the finish line, the normally reserved crew began whooping and jumped up onto the trampoline netting and into a joyful group hug.

Magnums of champagne arrived and Burling and crewman Blair Tuke, who won Olympic gold and silver medals together, sprayed the crew. The crew enjoyed beers together before going ashore.

About an hour later, with the America’s Cup set on a podium, Burling and Glenn Ashby grabbed it together and lifted it over their heads. As the silver trophy was passed around, some team members poured champagne into it and took swigs.

At 26, Burling became the youngest helmsman to win sailing’s greatest prize in a competition that dates to 1851.

The only non-Kiwi on the crew is Ashby, a 39-year-old Australian, multihull wiz and Olympic silver medalist who serves as skipper and controls the space-age wingsail with an Xbox-like device.

There were no Americans on Oracle Team USA’s crew, which included five Australians and one from Antigua.

Team New Zealand started this match with a negative point because Oracle won the qualifiers, forcing the Kiwis to win eight races to return the Auld Mug to the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron in Auckland for the first time since 2003.

In 2013 on San Francisco Bay, Team New Zealand, reached match point at 8-1. Oracle then won eight straight races to retain the Auld Mug.