There is one thing that always comes in the wake of disaster - jokes.
Within minutes of the 5-0 drubbing of Team New Zealand, a new joke was doing the rounds of the Viaduct.
Question: What does "Loyal" stand for?
Answer: Look our yacht's a lemon.
Never a truer word spoken in jest.
Magic to tragic
How long three years can seem. It was three years ago to the day yesterday that Team New Zealand defended the cup against those challengers we loved, Prada (mainly one suspects because we could beat them).
Look back at the Herald headlines then:
'Just Dandy, Dean', we trumpeted.
'It's Magic', we crowed.
'Nation in gridlock - work comes last on our big day'.
'City prepares to fete heroes'.
How long ago it all seems.
First home for once
And there, said the TVNZ commentator in hushed tones, is Team New Zealand as they lead Alinghi into the Viaduct Harbour.
And that's one of the few times they have led Alinghi in three weeks, said a million disgruntled fans in front of their television sets.
Peaks and troughs
Alinghi bowman Curtis Blewett, a Canadian who happens to be the only person on board the Swiss boat who has scaled the Matterhorn, has been discussing his greatest yachting moments with the Washington Post. Scariest experience? It came, he told the Post, in the awful conditions of the 1998 Sydney-Hobart Race when six sailors died.
Says the Post : "Twice he was washed off billionaire Larry Ellison's Sayonara in 70-knot gusts, he said, then washed back aboard by the next wave. 'You just look up at your mates and say, "Okay, that's good",' and get on with it,' he said."
The America's Cup must have seemed a doddle after that.
nzherald.co.nz/americascup
Racing schedule and results
<i>Off course:</i> Bitter acronym
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