America's Cup: Reliability weighs on minds of fans

Artemis (bottom of picture) taking out Team Japan is good news for a meaningful America's Cup match. Photo / AP

A Team New Zealand v Artemis showdown in the Louis Vuitton challenger final provides the best chance of a meaningful America's Cup match.

The harder the challenger series, the better the chances are of the successful challenger winning the America's Cup and I think in the Kiwi and Swedish syndicates we have found two clear stand-outs from the rest of the pack.

I wasn't surprised to see these two teams through to the final - Team NZ's Peter Burling and Artemis skipper Nathan Outteridge are two of the best sailors in the world.

It sets up a cracking couple of days of finals action, and I think it will be a real tussle - which is what we want to see. If it's a whitewash I don't think it's good for the challenger - whoever goes through.

The way the Louis Vuitton finals format has been set up, it is probably unrealistic to expect any team will go through to the Cup match unbeaten anyway.

The racing is too cut-throat. You make one mistake on these short courses, and you will be punished.

Although some Kiwi fans will be sad to see Dean Barker bow out, it was best for the competition that Team Japan were eliminated at this stage.

Had the Kiwi-led Japanese syndicate won the challenger final, I don't know why anyone would bother to watch the Cup match.

SoftBank are so aligned with Oracle that it would have been pretty much a foregone conclusion who would win the America's Cup.

At least now, either way, there will be a meaningful challenger that wants to win it.

To beat Artemis, Emirates Team New Zealand are going to need to be accurate, precise and make fewer mistakes than they have been.

They'll need to sail a lot better than they did in the semifinals, but it is well within their grasp.

The weather, and the reliability of the boats will also play a key role.

Reliability seems to be the one that is weighing most heavily on the minds of Kiwi fans.

There have been a lot of questions asked about what sort of condition the New Zealand boat is in after Wednesday's big crash, and I have to say it looks in remarkably good nick. The shore crew have done a phenomenal job of patching the boat up.

The only concern for Team NZ is they're a wing down, so that puts a lot of pressure on them in terms of reliability.

But the weather looks like it may be forgiving for them. If it was a day like we saw yesterday or earlier in the week, where the winds were up around 22 knots, you would be really concerned.

For today's opening day of racing in the final it looks like it will be in the 13-16 knot range, and then after that it's quite light.

That will be pleasing for Team NZ, who have looked good in the light air. This is down to the Kiwi team's balanced foil programme - they have a very good range with their foil and rudder options.

Artemis maybe are a bit more one-dimensional, but there's no doubt in the moderate range they look sharp.

For Artemis, their lack of consistency may be an area that could be exploited. When they're good, they're really good, but they have had through the round-robin and semifinals some inconsistent moments.

While the Swedish team will be carrying good momentum through to the final, having notched up four straight wins at the back end of their semifinal, Team NZ won't be at all hamstrung by having a day off yesterday.

It will have given the crew another day off to regroup and given the guys in the shed another 24 hours to make sure they're ready.