By JULIE ASH
Team New Zealand's failure has Alinghi skipper Russell Coutts "as puzzled as everyone else".
The Swiss syndicate trounced Team NZ 5-0 in the America's Cup match, and in two of the five races, Team NZ's black boat NZL82 was forced to retire.
"I don't think they had great luck," Coutts said. "Everyone sort of says, 'Oh yeah,' but the reality is they sailed their boat a lot before the series and they didn't have those sort of breakages. Then all of a sudden in the series they go out and break a mast, pull the gib tack out of their boat and the boat fills up with water - although that possibly wasn't luck, some of the other things certainly were."
Alinghi's SUI64, on the other hand, sailed through 33 races without any major damage.
"I kept on harping on to our guys about maintenance," Coutts said.
"I think we had a really, really good maintenance programme, probably second to none.
"But there is an element of luck in this game. Sometimes you can examine materials and they don't show any signs of fatigue, and then the next day you go out and the thing breaks."
With its innovative hull appendage and long keel bulb, Team NZ fans expected NZL82 to be a rocketship.
"Our predictions were that our boat would be slightly better," Coutts said.
"Quite often we heard that Team New Zealand's predictions were that their boat would be significantly better, actually.
"So we were sitting here scratching our heads saying, 'Wow, here are two good teams that have slightly different ideas.'
"You have to remember the Team New Zealand design team is almost the design team that won the cup. Everyone is being quite critical of them now, but how many designers can put their hands up and say they have won the America's Cup before? In the modern era not many. They are not fools, that is for sure."
Coutts said the near-sinking in race one was disastrous but should not have had an ongoing effect on the Team NZ crew.
"I think, if anything, if they were expecting their boat to be faster than ours, when they realised it wasn't after the first few races that might have been quite a hard pill to swallow.
"I think our boat was very, very good. Clearly in the last few races it showed how good it was. It was a very fast allround boat which had no real weaknesses."
Further reading: nzherald.co.nz/americascup
Coutts blames blackout on boat and luck
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