By Alexander Smith
BARCELONA, Spain (Reuters) -New Zealand stormed to within a point of retaining the America’s Cup on Friday, piling the pressure on their British challengers by taking a 6-2 “match point” lead in the first-to-seven series.
Skipper Peter Burling’s New Zealand crew outmanoeuvred Britain’s Ben Ainslie in a tricky offshore Barcelona breeze, correctly reading big wind shifts to get ahead and then build on their lead in their AC75 foiling monohull “Taihoro”.
“Really pleased with the way that the team executed today. We had two opportunities and took both of them and put two more wins on the board,” Burling told reporters, adding: “We know every win is harder to get than the one before.
“I don’t think you need to ask this team too often about being on match point,” Burling said, with reference to their heart-breaking loss in San Francisco in 2013 when they went from a winning position to defeat by the United States.
“Definitely excited, I’m really proud of the way that the team bounced back from Wednesday,” Burling said of back-to-back New Zealand losses which put the British back in the running.
Ainslie has made it his mission over the past decade to “bring the Cup home” to Britain, which has never won the 173-year-old event since it began around the Isle of Wight off southern England in 1851 and last made the final 60 years ago.
The 47-year-old has been backed by British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe in his quest, spending more than 100 million pounds ($130.35 million) to build the challenger boat “Britannia” with the help of the design team at Formula One’s Mercedes team.
‘BACK FOOT’
“We just couldn’t get that first shift right,” Ainslie said as he analysed what had gone wrong after Friday’s racing.
“We need perfection from here on in,” he added, saying that the team were “up for the fight” when racing resumes at the weekend, amid forecasts of very light winds on Saturday.
“We’re on the back foot, we don’t have any second chances,” Ainslie said, paying tribute to his “brilliant” hard-working team, who would keep focused whatever the conditions.
Ainslie knows about unlikely comebacks as he was on the winning side when New Zealand were defeated in 2013.
The Kiwis retook the “Auld Mug” in 2017 and successfully defended the trophy in Auckland in 2021.
“There are many scenarios, situations similar to this where it might appear pretty helpless but actually … what you’ve got to do is keep digging and keep fighting and you never know what might happen,” he said.
Ainslie, whose British crew had shown promise at the start of both the Friday’s races, said they needed to keep finding gains and were “not going to pull a rabbit out of the hat here”.
Although the British got across the start line first after pre-race skirmishes, the Kiwis capitalised on a favourable wind shift to seize a lead they never relinquished in the first race.
While their start looked even in the second race, a slick New Zealand crew once again read the wind better to ride the shifts and power their way ahead of the British upwind, going on to sail a near faultless race and take the win.
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(Reporting by Alexander Smith; Editing by Alex Richardson and Ken Ferris)
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