BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — New Zealand’s reign as the master of high-speed yachting remains intact. Britain’s long, long wait goes on.
Emirates Team New Zealand clinched match point in the 37th America’s Cup on Saturday, beating INEOS Britannia 7-2 in the best-of-13 finals held off Barcelona’s beachfront.
The team led by Grant Dalton won its third consecutive cup, adding to wins in 2017 in Bermuda and 2021 in Auckland.
New Zealand’s eight-man crew embraced and cheered on the deck of the 75-foot Taihoro after holding Britannia off to win Race 9.
“It is just sinking in. What an amazing day, this team has been amazing, what an amazing feeling,” New Zealand skipper Peter Burling said after his America’s Cup finals-record 22nd race win.
Britannia, meanwhile, fell one step short of winning the Auld Mug for Britain for the first time in the competition’s 173-year history.
“A huge well done to Team New Zealand, what an amazing campaign and team,” Britannia skipper Ben Ainslie said. “In my view they are the best team ever in the America’s Cup.”
Burling and the New Zealand team posed behind a winner’s banner as a fleet of fan boats gathered around and sounded horns in celebration. The team ran a New Zealand flag up its mast along with a huge white flag saying “Thank you very much Barcelona” in Catalan.
Many of the team’s fans back home had been disappointed when Dalton took the cup from Auckland to Spain in search of better financing. But thousands of fans wearing team shirts cheered the boat as it pulled into the team base, where it received a traditional Maori welcome.
“It has been a huge journey and I have loved every minute of it,” New Zealand helmsman Nathan Outteridge said after his first cup title, compared to No 3. for Burling, his steering partner.
After needing a repair following a crane mishap that damaged its hull at the start of the two-month competition, Taihoro raced aggressively in the final, winning the first four races. After Britannia capitalized on its mistakes to pull back two wins, Burling’s bunch shifted back into ruthless mode to finish them off with three more wins in a row.
“An amazing effort from the team, we had the pressure on us today,” said Dalton, the New Zealand team's chief executive. “These guys on the boat had to deliver, but they have to have the tools to do it, so a great job by everyone.”
Queen Victoria was in attendance when the schooner America bested the Royal Yacht Squadron in the race’s first edition in 1851. Since then the most successful country in Olympic sailing has challenged for the America’s Cup 23 times without winning it.
The first final in 60 years for a British yacht ended in more frustration and with work to do after Ainslie, the most successful sailor in Olympic history with four golds and a silver, saw his boat far too often in Taihoro’s wake.
INEOS Britannia had the backing of billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, who also is part owner of Manchester United, and the engineering know-how of the Mercedes Formula 1 team.
But it was Team New Zealand, and its elite in-house design team that wowed the world with its foiling AC75 monohulls, which proved that it still is the best in the game. The yachts broke speed records for the America’s Cup with velocities of up to 55.6 knots (64 mph/102kph) in the fickle Mediterranean winds.
The America’s Cup was born some four decades before the modern Olympic Games, and only four countries have even won it.
The Americans have won it 29 times and successfully defended the title 24 times from its inception until that incredible 132-year run ended in 1983 at the hands of the Australians, when they got their sole win. The Swiss were the last country to join the select club and have won it twice.
The Kiwis made it five America’s Cup wins overall, after first winning it in 1995 and again in 2000.
New Zealand leveraged the advantages of being the defender in this truly winner-takes-all event. As the defending champion, it picked Barcelona as its venue, set the rules and then got to sit out the Louis Vuitton Cup for challengers — and gather data and insight on Britannia as it beat four other rivals — with a spot in the final guaranteed in America’s Cup custom.
The Brits put up a fight in the final race, pulling level midway through, only for Taihoro, which in Maori means “to move swiftly as the sea between both sky and earth,” blocked their passing attempt and then sped off to win by a comfortable margin.
“We had our moments in the finals but at the end of the day the better team won,” Ainslie said.
Now Dalton can start planning for how to host, and win, the 38th America’s Cup.
The defender can keep it right here in Barcelona, where boats glide through the Mediterranean with the beachfront and La Sagrada Familia basilica in the background, and super yachts and their wealthy owners come in from around Europe and further abroad.
Or, as Dalton said, it could go back to Auckland, if, and only if, there existed the financing that was lacking when he decided to bring it to Spain. Saudi Arabia, however, is also in the mix after it hosted a preliminary regatta last year.
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AP sports writer Bernie Wilson in San Diego contributed.
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AP sports: https://apnews.com/hub/sports
Joseph Wilson, The Associated Press
