KEY POINTS:
If A team gets 2-0 up, it is going to be tough for the other one in the challenger series final.
If that happens, it then becomes a psychological battle as opposed to a physical one. If you are two-up in a best-of-nine race series you're virtually halfway
there.
Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa are pretty rock solid and have shown they can bounce back from losses. But to come back from 2-0 down would be tough. Momentum is hard to break.
It's not impossible though.
A lot will depend on the reasons for the losses. If one team are dominant through better boat speed, it will be difficult but, if the losses are due to errors, then a team could still come back and win.
With all the talk about starts, one aspect that hasn't really been discussed is the role of the bowman.
I have a lot of respect for Luna Rossa's Kiwi bowman Allan Smith. I regard him as the benchmark bowman.
You look at roles on the boat, you look at the helmsman, the tactician and your trimmers.
But the bowman is so important when putting a team together. They are involved in so much. Not just starting but also lee-bow tacks, dips and mark roundings. If they get it wrong it can be a catastrophe. Looking at James Spithill's starting, you must attribute some of that to Smith. But Team NZ's Jeremy Lomas also looks good. You have almost got the old guard Smith verses the young rising star in Lomas. That will be quite intriguing.
There are two other areas that could make the difference in the final outside the boats and the crew.
One is the weather teams. We have now seen a high level of sophistication and tactical use of the information coming from the weather teams.
Luna Rossa are very good in that area, Team NZ are too, so it will be interesting.
The other one is the umpiring. The umpires will come under greater scrutiny. Throughout the challenger series, there have been some grumblings from the teams about some of the umpiring calls.
From the umpires, you are looking for consistency and correct calls and there have been a few mistakes so far.
Interestingly, the umpires are not from neutral countries.
When asked at the start of the challenger series whether there would be neutral umpires picked for the final, regatta director Dyer Jones said no, they'd put the best umpires available on the water.
There shouldn't be umpires of the nationality of the teams in the final.
The problem is that some of the best umpires, like Oracle's Russell Green and Team NZ's Jack Lloyd are working for syndicates, reducing the pool of top cup umpires.
Peter Lester is a former America's Cup sailor
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