A mistake in the pre-start saw Emirates Team New Zealand comfortably beaten by Ineos Britannia in race five of the Cup match. Photo / Photosport
A mistake in the pre-start saw Emirates Team New Zealand comfortably beaten by Ineos Britannia in race five of the Cup match. Photo / Photosport
As Team New Zealand approached the starting box for race five in the America’s Cup match against Ineos Britannia, port helmsman Nathan Outteridge knew his team were in trouble.
In light breeze and bumpy water, the defenders were slightly late to the mark on their arrival to the pre-start, triggering a chain of events that ultimately led to Team NZ wallowing off their foils and becoming easy prey for their British rivals.
It was the first major mistake the defenders had made in the Cup match so far and set the tone for a day of disappointment as the Kiwis lost both races to see the Brits close the gap to 4-2.
Reflecting on where things went wrong in the day’s first race, Nathan Outteridge pinpointed the moment he knew things might get a bit sticky.
“It was probably just before we entered when I realised it was a marginal cross. Then we were riding up the back of a wave [and] it was getting worse, not better, for us,” Outteridge said.
“That’s the tough thing when you’re sailing in the bottom-end conditions and the sea state around, your speeds can just fluctuate so much depending on where you sit in that sea state.
“With the way the wind was at the start of the day, we didn’t get to do many practice starts. The wind came in quite light and caught us a bit off-guard. That’s life. Sometimes you make mistakes and you learn from them. We won’t be making that one again.”
A mistake in the pre-start saw Emirates Team New Zealand comfortably beaten by Ineos Britannia in race five of the Cup match. Photo / Photosport
They followed that race up with a significantly better start in race six of the series and looked to have the upper hand in the pre-start duel as both teams went to make their final gybes to turn back toward the starting line.
While Britannia looked to be pinned up high on the course, they were able to accelerate out of their manoeuvre faster than the Kiwis, sail over the top of them and get another quality start.
Team NZ opted to split off the starting line and the two sailed in the closest race of the match so far, but again the British were first across the finish line.
“We thought we were going to be in quite a strong spot out of that and they just accelerated out of their gybe faster than we did, which was credit to them and meant they were on the front foot coming into that start,” Outteridge said.
“That was the key moment of that entire race. We’ll obviously review that and work out how we can do a better job, but safe to say the starting has been exciting so far and we’re looking forward to some more battles with Ben and the team on Friday.”
The results saw the scoreline move to one more reflective of how tight racing has been through much of the Cup match so far.
Though Team NZ took a 4-0 lead, none of their wins had been complete blowouts of more than a minute and Ineos Britannia threw plenty at the defenders early in races.
As the match observes another reserve day tomorrow, both teams will have plenty to reflect on ahead of what shapes up as arguably the most intriguing day of the regatta to date.
“Today we made a couple of errors. Ineos punished us for that as they should and as we expect. We have high standards for how we sail these boats and a couple of errors today meant we didn’t win the races,” Outteridge said.
“It’s not all doom and gloom for us. We’re in good shape, our boat’s going quite quick and we were able to keep that second race really close despite often being on the wrong side of the shifts or the gusts. They did a great job of covering when they needed to and other times taking the shift their way.
“We’re just looking forward to Friday and doing a better job in the starts than we did today and trying to get on with this.”
