Chris Rattue: Why Team New Zealand surely fear they will be smashed out of America's Cup

Team New Zealand training at the Royal Naval Dockyard in Bermuda. Photo / ACEA 2017

The closer the America's Cup gets, the more I fear for Team New Zealand's chances of keeping their campaign afloat.

The reason: the spectre of that Ben Ainslie Racing-caused crash last week - when the Brits ploughed into the TNZ boat causing considerable damage - won't go away.

A repeat to any boat could sink this single-vessel America's Cup quest, and in a packed schedule the difficult question of how to punish an offender and restore the innocent party appears to remain unanswered with racing just days away.

It's too easy to wash that "incident" away and see it in black and white terms, of Ainslie either acting deliberately or not. In reality, like a lot of life, there is far more grey than black and white.

First question: If Ainslie had been in exactly the same position, and regatta overlords Oracle Team USA had been in TNZ's place, would the crash have occurred?

The answer, I would contend, lies somewhere between no and unlikely.

New Zealand correctly portrays itself as the lone wolf in Bermuda - it's hard to find anyone who disputes that - with the other challengers in various degrees of cahoots with defenders Oracle.

That TNZ are the only victims of a crash so far only heightens fears that they are in the greatest danger. But for Ainslie's misjudgement, I would have dismissed the crash fears as unwarranted. But that severe smash was a shock which turned into a reality check.

Which doesn't mean that Ainslie set out to ram TNZ, or even had a moment of madness.

But the brain works in funny ways, as in people take a little more care with their gleaming new motor compared to when they are rattling around town in a wreck of panelbeater courtesy car. You're not trying to crash either, but not all crash possibilities are created equal. And Ainslie got away with it.

Put it this way: if you were setting odds on the team most likely to be undone by a crash in Bermuda, TNZ would pay the least. And the odds on a crash are high, because this is knife edge, power packed racing using technology and design which is still fully capable of leaving the sailors behind, or in the drink.

This isn't just an America's Cup. It's also a testing facility. For Bermuda, read a softer version of the Edwards Air Force Base, a patch of desert where America broke a lot of barriers, and killed a lot of test pilots. Any time off the water, for repairs, is development opportunity lost.

And a couple of these America's Cup challengers could be loose cannons on finding they have no hope of staying on the pace.

The 35th America's Cup could go many ways, but what comes next is as fascinating as what comes now. Already, there are rumours that speedboats have trouble keeping up with one of these yachts when they let her rip.

So what's the more likely?: SoftBank Japan, a little brother offshoot of Oracle, running into TNZ or Oracle? Mind you, if SoftBank did a hard bank into TNZ, skipper Dean Barker would return to these shores with trepidation.

This is not, I have to emphasise, a column suggesting deliberate cheating by crashing. Yes, we are dealing with win-at-all costs merchants. But they are highly skilled, highly professional, with the standards which go with that. There is some sort of code between those who live on the sea, a respect for life, and awareness of the dangers they face.

But this question just will not go away: if Ainslie had been racing against Oracle that day, would Team Russell Coutts have ended up spending a few days wading through epoxy vapours and carbon dust? Methinks not.