Americas Cup Day One

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I nearly missed this today and caught the last part of race 1 and the entire race 2. Remember this is now the finals after months of preliminary rounds the defender being Team New Zealand versus the Challenger of Record Prada Luna Rossa. The first team to 7 victories lifts the trophy.

Team New Zealand being the defending champion was not allowed to race in the preliminary rounds so we had no clue how fast or slow the boat was. We all know the Italian team has been pretty slick up until now thrashing the British 7-1 in the Prada Cup which qualified them as the challenger for the final.

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The first race must have had the Italians very worried as we have seen how important the starts have been. Normally if you start well you dominate the course which is over 6 legs/laps. The Italians came over the start line in first place but the Kiwi's overtook them within the first 100m to dominate the race winning by 31 seconds at the finish line. 1 nil New Zealand and we all thought this would be a cake walk.

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The second race which I watched in full was an epic battle with the Italians on Luna Rossa just squeaking home. At one stage at the halfway mark they had a 25 second 400m lead only to see the New Zealanders come back at them. 25 seconds became 24 seconds at the turn of the 4th leg and 12 seconds at the turn of the 5th. With the downward home straight with the winds at their backs the New Zealand boat eventually lost by 5 seconds needing what looks like an extra 500m to win.

The first rounds are a warm up testing each other out and locked at 1-1 this is going to be a gripping few days and recommend everyone to tune in. I still back New Zealand after what I have seen so far just by how they came back in the second race. They looked dead and buried yet knew the local conditions gaining valuable seconds leaving the Italians sweating on what should have been a comfortable win.

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60mph or 96km/h is quick on water.

The New Zealand boat is quicker yet the Italians gained time when the tacking happened. This means the New Zealanders will get that part right tomorrow and they should start pulling ahead but one mistake is all it takes as this is so tight. The course they are on is 4 and 5 which is out in the bay away from the coastline due to lock down. The spectators can't get close enough so this is to prevent crowds gathering to watch.

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If you have a boat though there are literally hundreds of bats with spectators but one was turned away yesterday as their bubble was too big. The Australian super yacht The Bold was turned away as they have 20 crew plus guests. Sounds crazy but New Zealand has been very strict up until now on who can and can't enter their quarantine.