Dominant Team NZ eye early finish to challenger finals

TEAM New Zealand are in a good space as they look to wrap up the Louis Vuitton Cup final this weekend after victories on and off the water yesterday.

After so many breakages and postponements, the challengers’ final finally delivered a two-race, two-- boat affair in San Francisco with Team New Zealand taking a comfortable double, beating Luna Rossa by 2min 28sec and 1min 18sec. They now lead the best of 13 final 4-1.

Those results followed a jury room farce where Oracle withdrew their trespass claims against both Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa.

The America’s Cup holders got a ticking off from the International Jury for leaking their protest to the media before they informed the jury. Oracle had alleged the challengers were ‘‘crawling all over’’ Oracle’s smaller AC45s ‘‘after business hours’’ but weren’t sure whether that constituted trespass under California law and agreed to drop the matter.

Oracle should be more concerned about what’s happening with the larger AC72s because that’s where Team New Zealand continue to shine, displaying impressive speed upwind yesterday, even getting Aotearoa up on its foils and hitting 29.07 knots into the breeze.

They continue to dampen the theory that they are a heavy-weather outfit, with the boat excelling in the light winds of 12-17 knots, hitting a top speed of 43.77 knots.