US press trumpets bad news

By BERNARD ORSMAN

The Washington Post's heading was simple; "Kiwis' Cup Defence Takes on Water".

Moments after New Zealand watched in horror on Saturday as Team New Zealand's much-vaunted technology sprang a leak, the world's press was spreading the bad news.

Washington Post writer Angus Phillips wrote: "Team New Zealand trained three years to defend the America's Cup, built a new boat with a radical underwater appendage and carried the hopes of 3.9 million countrymen to the start line. But the glory lasted just 20 minutes."

He pointed out that the debacle occurred before thousands of spectator boats and a global TV audience in conditions that were expected to favour New Zealand.

The New York Times, under the heading "New Zealand Forced to Bail Out of America's Cup Opener", reported that Team New Zealand had been forced to go low-tech to stay afloat.

"After all the innovations - the lightweight boom, the 22ft-long keel bulb, the high-tech rig - the fate of Team New Zealand today came down to the performance of the most primitive piece of onboard gear: the bucket."

The San Francisco Chronicle, under the headline, "Kiwis knocked out of America's Cup opener", concluded that Team New Zealand's "10-race winning streak in the America's Cup came to a shocking end".

The American media gave the cup opening race extensive coverage.

Fox Sports' website simply asked: "What went wrong for Team New Zealand?"

The San Jose Mercury News in California said pundits expected that strong winds on the Hauraki Gulf would favour Team New Zealand.

"Instead, they nearly tore New Zealand's boat apart."

In Seattle, Washington state, home of the OneWorld challenger, the Seattle Times carried an agency report headed, "Kiwis no competition as Alinghi takes lead".

The day before, one of its staff writers, former New Zealand Herald journalist Nick Perry, wrote an analysis of the hula, Team New Zealand's innovative design, under the heading "One hull of an idea may mean Cup has been won even before racing begins".

In it he argued that the race might have been decided one December day two years ago when Team New Zealand designer Clay Oliver, an American, was designing hull shapes.

"As he went from one set of boat lines to the other, an idea began to germinate. Two months later his hunch became a tank model and the 'hula' was born."

In Britain, the Independent ran an article by Mike Turner under the heading "Sinking feeling for Kiwis".

Turner wrote: "'She'll be right, mate', is a favourite Kiwi saying when optimism is the only option in the face of adversity.

"But the whole stunned New Zealand nation was struggling to pick itself up after Team New Zealand lost the opening race of the America's Cup to Switzerland's Alinghi after a catalogue of disasters."

nzherald.co.nz/americascup

Racing schedule and results