Flag sabotage: Team New Zealand fans targeted by vandals

Emirates Team New Zealand fly the New Zealand flag at the team base in Hamilton, Bermuda.

Team New Zealand fans in Bermuda are aghast at the "sour grapes" attitude of Oracle supporters after their displays of patriotism were targeted by vandals over the weekend.

Simon Hull, who is among a group of eight Kiwi fans to make the trip Bermuda for the America's Cup match, had decorated the front grounds of their accommodation with New Zealand flags and silver fern bunting.

The display had been in place for three weeks until yesterday morning, when they awoke to find it had been torn down.

"It had been slashed with a knife - you can see where the knife had gone through," said Hull.

"The owner of the property where we're staying is an 83-year-old local who had really embraced hosting 7-8 passionate Kiwi fans. She is just livid someone had come on to her property and done this."

Another fan got up at 2am on the morning of the opening races of the Cup match and put up New Zealand flags on every second lamp post lining the main road from Somerset, on the western side of the island, into the America's Cup village.

The next day, the flags had all been removed.

"It's just really sad to see that kind of sour grapes attitude," said Hull.

"Wouldn't it have been wonderful to see a whole heap of US flags around the place as well and people get into the spirit of a fair, but fierce, competition, rather than stoop to that level of pettiness?"

The America's Cup Events Authority (ACEA) has also been accused of pettiness, with suspicions among New Zealand fans the dock-out shows in the America's Cup village had been canned as the support for Emirates Team New Zealand outweighed that of Oracle.

The dock-out shows - a fixture at the last event in San Francisco - were held before the weekend racing through the Louis Vuitton challenger series as a way for the crowds at the village to connect with and put a face to the crew on board the race boats. But the shows have been inexplicably axed for the main event.

When asked by Radio NZ why the dock-out shows had been cancelled, the ACEA's only response was "there are no plans to reinstate them".

The America's Cup village has been awash with New Zealand flags over the first to days, with the number of Kiwi fans in Bermuda building steadily over the course of the regatta.

Despite attempts to get the local Bermudians to support their "home" team, the turn-out in support of Oracle Team USA has been comparatively less vocal.

Team NZ helmsman Peter Burling made several references to the level of support the team have received from back home and on the ground in Bermuda.

"It's been amazing how many people are getting up at five in the morning to watch us, and the messages we are getting from back home.

"There's a huge amount of Kiwis that have travelled up here to support us, you can see all the flags around the village and it really inspires us to keep pushing."