Team New Zealand's Te Rehutai has its mast installed on Tuesday. Photo / Michael Craig
OPINION:
The last time the America's Cup match was raced on the Waitematā Harbour, a lot of things broke.
They included, spectacularly, a mast, some rigging and a spinnaker pole. Less obviously, but more significantly, a bond between the New Zealand public and the trophy that had become something close to an obsession was also severed.
It was an ugly end to New Zealand's first Cup reign, with the Frankenstein's Monster of a boat ripe for the picking by a landlocked Swiss syndicate packed to the gunwales with New Zealand's finest sailing talent.
It stung, but the kicker was this: with the likes of billionaires Ernesto Bertarelli and American software magnate Larry Ellison embossing themselves on to the event's fabric, there was no feasible way back for a country at the bottom of the world whose populace tended to look at excessive displays of wealth with suspicion, if not outright disdain.
There was a sense, even among large portions of the sailing community, that challenging for the Auld Mug was throwing good money after bad.
But Team New Zealand didn't fold. It hired a chief executive in Grant Dalton who can give you splinters by brushing up against him, but who also has a capacity for squeezing dollars out of public and private purses.
It called on a bunch of talented locals whose plasma is 90 per cent salt water and established themselves, slowly but surely, as the pre-eminent America's Cup sailing team.
It has launched audacious campaigns in new boat classes, agonisingly so in the shadow of the Golden Gate in 2013 and then with startling dominance in the azure waters of Bermuda.
Because of the dramatic and scarcely believable way they succumbed to Oracle in the San Francisco regatta, not enough credit was given to how they pulled together a multihull team and campaign that came within a puff of wind of winning.
The Wall Street Journal called Oracle's recovery from 8-1 down to win the best-of-17 match "one of the greatest comebacks in sports history", and the concession of a big lead led to Warren Commission-type investigations here but one point has never been appreciated: nobody would have believed it possible for Team New Zealand to be leading the match in the first place.
Four years later, on the Great Sound of Bermuda, while the odds were still stacked heavily in the defender's favour as the class was modified from AC72s to AC50s, Team NZ were smarter and faster.
It was an extraordinary top-to-bottom performance: a performance so complete that it, combined with the "neutral" venue, sucked any suspense from the competition.
It is worth remembering all this when reading the next section of this story because it can be argued Team NZ never truly got the credit they deserved for bringing the Cup back to Auckland.
It was a stupendous achievement.
This regatta has been flawed. At times, it has had the feel of one of those "big boys toys" exhibitions rather than a genuine sporting contest.
The Prada Cup fell a long way short of proving the seat-of-your pants, all-action drama that those who conceived foiling monohulls must have envisaged.
The best way to look at it is as a starting point for this AC75 class, not an endgame.
The costs associated with researching and developing a new and untested class deterred all but three syndicates from committing to Auckland.
Old favourites Luna Rossa arrived as Challenger of Record, as did American Magic, backed by the venerable New York Yacht Club, and upstarts Ineos Team UK, bankrolled by the billions of industrialist Jim Ratcliffe.
A three-horse race can be compelling; not so much when one of the horses breaks its leg at the first fence, which is effectively what happened to the American boat Patriot when it tacked and attempted to bear away rounding the final mark in a round-robin race.
Much was made of the camaraderie between the crews as all pitched in to help save the badly wounded boat Patriot, but it only served to work as a metaphor for a bigger picture: they were saving the Prada Cup from sinking.
To a point, it worked. A patched-up Patriot took its place in the starting box but it was outclassed by Luna Rossa; the Italians in turn proving far too strong in Auckland's light summer breezes for Team UK in the final.
The Prada Cup final was drama-free. Whatever boat led at the first mark led at the finish. Nearly always, it was Luna Rossa, which, one kink aside, has sailed in a figuratively straight line to the start of the America's Cup match race.
This brings us to now and, mercifully, a degree of uncertainty.
Perceived wisdom is that Te Rehutai will be too fast; that Team NZ's familiarity with home conditions has enabled them to develop a sailing package that will have a higher top speed than Luna Rossa's all-round consistency.
The calculus is simple: fastest boat equals winner.
Although purists will argue that has tilted the balance too far from "sailing" to tech — an argument mirrored in Formula One — it ignores that in Peter Burling versus Jimmy Spithill, you also have arguably the two best match-racing sailors going head to head.
That's cause for some excitement, as are the potential performances of the boats.
Neutrals might want a close race but they should be forewarned that they are a rarity at this point in the competition.
In the 36 Cup matches to this point, 25 have featured a nil in the score.
So far the overall score reads Defender 106, Challenger 46, with Team NZ accounting for 22 of those 46 challenger race wins.
They are, unquestionably, the greatest America's Cup challenging syndicate in the event's long history. Can they add a defending legacy to match?
That will all be decided over the next week. The venue for the next race will be decided after that and it has been made clear Auckland is not a guaranteed choice, even if the hosts complete the victory.
If the Cup moves on to waters new at the end of this match, it pays to remember what a remarkable job this team did to get the event back on the Waitematā in the first place.
The last time it was here, it turned out they were just bowed, not broken.
Heading into the Cup racing?
• Give yourself plenty of time and think about catching a ferry, train or bus to watch the Cup.
• Make sure your AT HOP card is in your pocket. It's the best way to ride.
• Don't forget to scan QR codes with the NZ COVID Tracer app when on public transport and entering the America's Cup Village.
• For more ways to enjoy race day, visit at.govt.nz/americascup.
OPINION: The latest backlash from challengers feels like a play for more power.