Emirates Team New Zealand in action against Artemis Racing Sweden off Bermuda. Photo/America's Cup
To mark one year since Team New Zealand reclaimed the America's Cup, the Herald looks back on the Bermuda triumph.
May 30, 2017 was day five of racing in the America's Cup Qualifiers and saw Team New Zealand recover from a dramatic nose dive to beat Team Sweden.
***
Team New Zealand helmsman Peter Burling paid tribute to his engine room for driving another come-from-behind win over Team Sweden in the America's Cup qualifying series off Bermuda.
The Kiwis only regained control of the contest, when Sweden skipper Nathan Outteridge was caught napping at the fifth mark, but almost blew their chances early, with a huge nose dive on the second leg.
35th America's Cup: Race Day 4 moments30th May: Race Day 4 was a straight-up rematch with a fired up Artemis Racing seeking quick retribution on Emirates Team New Zealand from the day before to kick off Round Robin 2 of the 35th #AmericasCup
Posted by Emirates Team New Zealand on Tuesday, May 29, 2018
After falling behind early, Emirates Team New Zealand seemed to be closing on their rivals at the second turn, when they crossed behind and dipped deep into the Great Sound, grinding to a virtual halt and immediately losing 20 seconds.
"It was a little loose from where I was sitting, to be honest," said Burling afterwards. "We had a really good gybe and were sailing really fast below Nath, trying to give him a little luff, and we lost flow over both rudders - both of them came out of the water.
"We kind of spun and put the bows in.
"After that point, we did an amazing job to bounce back and just grind our way back into the race. The guys were producing plenty of oil, so we could keep pulling off good manoeuvre after good manoeuvre.
"We wouldn't have been able to do that yesterday, so full credit to the work the guys have been doing overnight."
Burling's comments also hint at some extra development done by the onshore team to improve the performance of the AC50 boat.
After their mishap, Team New Zealand hung tough and chipped away at the margin, especially into the wind, an area of weakness highlighted by Burling after yesterday's penalty-gate win over the same opponents.
After being robbed of victory by an umpire's error yesterday, Outteridge admitted he thoroughly earned today's late penalty - his third in two races - that allowed his opponents through for victory.
"We were approaching on port and New Zealand were on starboard," he reflected. "It was pretty clear, from our perspective, that it was quite a marginal cross and we decided to take it on and tack above.
"Halfway through the cross, we realised we weren't going to happen. We just had to hold course and tack above, and thankfully, Pete saw us and went behind us.
"We copped the penalty fair and square there."
Another hard fought battle with Artemis Racing out in the Great Sound. Happy to come away with one more point on the board. #etnz pic.twitter.com/JW4nMGWPa3
— EmiratesTeamNZ (@EmiratesTeamNZ) May 30, 2017
One of the favoured teams entering the challenger series, Sweden have now lost three consecutive races.
"It's pretty obvious we've been disappointed with how the racing's been going so far, but it has been really close," said Outteridge.
"You saw how close it was with New Zealand at the finish of that one. We just misjudged that top-mark approach, which let him through and not a good start against [Sir Ben Ainslie], which put us out of the race.
"A lot of the races we've been losing have been really close and we've got a couple of days off now - we've got a day tomorrow and a bit of light wind coming - so we'll have a chance to regroup for the final two days.
"We've still got massive confidence in the team and I'm sure we'll come out fighting in a couple of days."
![[object HTMLTextAreaElement]](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/resizer/v2/73VY257PJPQS2H4V54TNDAVUWM.jpg?auth=c1c69af744dc1c81ed5bac07759773f73d48df5df9cec546d05dbf9fcbb2bdb9&width=16&height=12&quality=70&smart=true)
With five wins from six races, the Kiwis still sit a point behind America's Cup holders Oracle Team USA on the qualifier standings, but ahead of the other challengers. Ben Ainslie Racing (GBR) are next, but are relying heavily on the two bonus points they brought from winning the world series.
New Zealand are now assured of progress through to the semifinals, but Burling deflected claims that their latest win established them as clearly the best of the challengers.
"We're just trying to improve as much as we can, as we go through," he said. "Definitely, one of our goals in the challenger series is to keep improving and keep working on things.
"One of the things that's really pleasing with how we went today was we actually tidied up a lot of the errors we had yesterday. The boat was going a lot quicker and we were doing a lot better manoeuvres."
Current qualifying standings
Oracle Team USA 6pts
Emirates Team NZ 5pts
Land Rover BAR (GBR) 4pts
Artemis Racing (Sweden) 2pts
Groupama Team France 2pts
Softbank Team Japan 2pts
Today's racing
Emirates Team NZ beat Artemis Racing (Sweden) by one min 31 secs
Oracle Team USA beat Groupama Team France by one min 56 secs
Land Rover BAR v Artemis Racing (Sweden) by 30 secs
- Reporting by Dana Johannsen