KEY POINTS:
Team New Zealand will take a lot of heart from their win in race two.
What impressed me was how patient they were when they were behind and how they were happy to make small gains.
If Alinghi had not made a mistake, the Kiwis probably would not have got past but they got themselves in a position where they were close enough to pounce if Alinghi slipped up.
How it unfolded was that Alinghi were sailing quite loose.
When you are fast you do tend to be a little bit loose and a little bit casual.
At the bottom gate, the teams went around different marks. The Kiwis took a little gain from doing that.
When they came back together, Team New Zealand had clawed back to within a boat length. Alinghi then tacked to leeward. When Ed Baird did the tack it was a bit of a spinning tack, it wasn't smooth and it slowed the boat. That opened up a very small opportunity and the New Zealanders took it.
When the tack was complete on Alinghi the Kiwis, to windward, went bow up and were able to hold that, pushing Alinghi out over the layline.
It was the first significant mistake we have seen in the America's Cup match so far.
Alinghi might have been a little bit over-confident ... they have talked themselves up a lot. They looked a bit slack and a little bit inaccurate in their decision making.
Team New Zealand gained on the last downwind leg. Ray Davies deserves a lot of credit there. He was instrumental in calling the shifts with Adam Beashel. Alinghi are fast but they are not hammeringly fast.
A lot of statistics went out the window following the win. It is only the second time in 20 years that a team has been beaten in the America's Cup match. In 1992, Il Moro di Venezia won a race over America 3. The next three cups were won 5-0.
It is the first time New Zealand have beaten Alinghi in a cup race. It is the first loss in 16 cup races for Brad Butterworth, Simon Daubney, Dean Phipps, Murray Jones and Warwick Fleury, who were part of Team New Zealand's winning campaigns in 1995 and 2000 before moving to Alinghi in 2003.
In the pre-regattas, if Team New Zealand were ahead of Alinghi at the first mark they won 86 per cent of the races. If Alinghi were ahead, the first mark they won 100 per cent of time. We'll see what happens in race three.
