America's Cup: Team NZ hold nerve for another thrilling win over Swedes

Artemis Team Sweden lead Emirates Team New Zealand at the America's Cup qualifier series. Photo/America's Cup

After benefitting from a judicial error yesterday, Team New Zealand were on the right end of another crucial ruling today, taking a nail-biting race against Team Sweden in the America's Cup qualifier series.

The result effectively means the Kiwis cannot be eliminated from the challenger series this weekend, even if they lose their remaining four races.

The Swedes lead most of the journey, but made a bad error approaching the fifth mark, crossing too close to the closing Kiwis and incurring a penalty they never recovered from, eventually slipping one minute 31 seconds behind by the finish.

"The boys sailed an absolutely fantastic race," said TNZ helmsman Peter Burling. "We did a whole heap of manoeuvres in that one and scrambled our way out a fair few times.

"The boys dug really deep to give us enough power to keep charging and keep doing some really good tacks - we're really happy with how we stepped that up from yesterday.

"To walk away with that win after the super tight race yesterday was incredibly racing."

The rivals were even off the start, but Sweden won the sprint to the first mark and stamped their authority, when the TNZ nose-dived approaching the second turn.

Emirates Team NZ reduced their 20-second deficit to just five on the next upwind leg and continued to chip away, finally taking an advantage after another spectacular upwind run.

Sweden seemed to be caught out of sequence approaching the fifth mark, failed to give way to TNZ as the AC50 boats crossed and were obliged to tack behind their opponents around the mark.

The Swedish boat came to a virtual standstill after the turn, as the Kiwis galloped away to victory.

The result in their only outing of the day chalked up a fifth win from six races so far during this regatta - their only loss was against America's Cup holders Oracle Team USA on opening day - the best record among challengers.

Team USA made every post a winner against Team France, replicating their big win from opening day, but had to nurse their boat through a minor technical issue over the latter stages.

After entering the challenger campaign late and completing a winless preparation, the French have been big improvers through the week, but were no match for the holders, finishing almost two minutes behind, and still loom as most likely to go home after this weekend.

Ben Ainslie Racing capped a bad day on the water for Team Sweden, imposing a second defeat on them and breaking their own four-race losing streak.

The British entered the qualifier series with the benefit of two points from winning the America's Cup World Series, but have not looked like real contenders since their collision with Japan on opening day.

Today, they took full advantage of the Swedes, perhaps fatigued from having to back up so soon after their race against New Zealand, opening a 24-second advantage to the third mark and repulsing any efforts from Swedish skipper Nathan Outteridge to chip away at it.

BAR's final winning margin was 30 seconds.

"We needed that one and the guys did a great job,' said Sir Ben Ainslie. "We put a lot of preparation into it, after the disappointment of yesterday, and if anything, made some big changes to the boat.

"It's a big win for us, and we need to keep developing from here and keep moving forward."

Current qualifying standings
Oracle Team USA 6pts
Emirates Team NZ 5pts
Land Rover BAR (GBR) 4pts
Artemis Racing (Sweden) 2pts
Groupama Team France 2pts
Softbank Team Japan 2pts

Today's racing
Emirates Team NZ beat Artemis Racing (Sweden) by one min 31 secs
Oracle Team USA beat Groupama Team France by one min 56 secs
Land Rover BAR v Artemis Racing (Sweden) by 30 secs