Toyota dockside in Bermuda: Bizarre start to America's Cup finale

There has been a sudden influx of Kiwi supporters at the America's Cup. Photo / Photosport

"Surreal" is a good word to describe the first two days of the 35th America's Cup match in Bermuda. So is "weird" and "bizarre".

There's always been something slightly unworldly about this fabled 166 year old event, but the dock-out scenario for the first two races took it to a new level.

From the Emirates Team New Zealand dock it's about 250 metres across the water to the Oracle Team USA base where a knot of Stars and Stripes-waving supporters were giving the Australian crew on USA 17 a send-off.

They were too far away to count or hear and the same would have applied in reverse. What surprised most of us who've been here a while was the sudden influx of Kiwi supporters who were out in force to ensure Aotearoa, New Zealand enjoyed a raucous departure.

Most were armed with Kiwi flags which are also here in abundance thanks to Sir Stephen Tindall, The Warehouse boss , who is also on the board of directors of Emirates Team New Zealand. He's a passionate "hands-on" supporter of the cause, as is his fellow director Tina Symmans , who is often seen wielding a vacuum cleaner or a polishing cloth around the base. It's all part of the team's all-hands-on-deck mantra.

As they departed, some of the largely American superyachts tied up to the private quay by the harbour entrance, blasted their support via the ships' horns, a Kiwi crewman on one of them ensuring his countrymen didn't miss out.

Once they'd left it was all strangely quiet, the emptiness emphasised by the absence of cruise liners. Normally there are two moored on their pier near the dockyard which for a while was empty. Maybe nobody had told their schedulers that the battle for the oldest international sporting trophy was about to begin. Weird.

Equally weird was the reaction to what might be called some ambush flag-planting the night before by another passionate Kiwi fan who, in the dead of night, spent hours lining the road leading into the Royal Dockyard with large Kiwi flags on sticks.

A total of 52 adorned lamp-posts, telegraph poles and trees for 10km on the island's Middle Road. At the same time the local paper, the Royal Gazette, was carrying a full page message from Toyota New Zealand encouraging Bermudians to get behind the Kiwi challenge.

Alongside a graphic of Bermuda, cleverly cut in half to look like the North and South Islands, ran this letter:

We at Toyota New Zealand have been thinking.
We've got lots in common.
You're an island nation. We're an island nation.
You were colonised by Britain. We were colonised by Britain.
You've got a Hamilton City. We've got a Hamiton City.
You like to fish. We like to fish.
What we're trying to say is, we could be great together.
As you know, our boys, Emirates team New Zealand,
Are competing against each other for the 'Auld Mug'.
And we were wondering if we could count on your support?
We're underdogs and frankly. Compared to Larry,
we're not exactly made of money.
So it would mean the world to us if you could get behind our team.
Support us on the Emirates Team New Zealand Facebook page.
Also, if we win we'll give you our North Island *
Kind regards,
Toyota New Zealand (on behalf of New Zealand)
*If our Prime Minister us cool with it.

By that evening Emirates Team New Zealand had the first two races in the bag.

By the following morning all but one of the 52 Kiwi flags had been taken down. Word was an Oracle flunky had been told to remove them and Oracle supporters were later seen erecting Stars and Stripes substitutes. There were also a couple of bed-sheet sized hand written signs, hanging by the main road, exhorting the locals to get behind Oracle, with one referring to Jimmy Spithill's wife as being "hot".

In American parlance Emirates Team New Zealand are 4 and 0. That puts them 3 points up in the first to seven series because, through another weird anomaly, they started at minus one.

There's a five-day hiatus before racing resumes. Heaps of time for conspiracy theorists to have a field-day.

And on the plus side, five days without that sick nervous pit in the stomach at around 1.15pm.