KEY POINTS:
Team New Zealand are in a very strong position for the future. Given where they were in 2003, which was in a shambles, they are now right there with huge assets, huge intellectual knowledge and huge passion and belief.
They have got there through very good leadership, good
recruitment and good design where the sailors have had a lot of input.
The key was making early decisions. They built and launched their first new boat, NZL84, early. It was quite a radical looking boat but came out of the box pretty good. NZL92 was a refined version.
They made early decisions on big components, like their four spreader rigs, what hull they were going to use, they locked their sail programme in early, shapes of mainsails, genoas, their bulb shapes.
They also locked their crew in early. They made good strategic moves.
They also got funding relatively early which allowed them to do that, something which will again be vital for the future.
It is important they get back into the design process quickly. Alinghi had an edge. It is not a generation edge but it is an edge. The challenge for Team New Zealand and all the other challengers is to find out where and how have they squeezed out a little more performance.
For a lot of the teams it is "rebuild" time. Oracle are going to come back extremely strong if they get Russell Coutts, Luna Rossa will regroup and then there are new teams like Origin who are going to kick off.
It is going to be hard.
I thought if Team New Zealand didn't win the America's Cup it would be all over.
But the yachting public and general public have realised the Team New Zealand brand is an asset. It is bigger than yachting, it is bigger than Team New Zealand - here we are in Europe and brand New Zealand is out there.
Under Grant Dalton's leadership the team will always have "a feet on the ground approach", they will remain non flashy and uncomplicated. If that changes maybe then it is time to give it away but not now.
This is the wrong time to give it away. Sure the team is absolutely gutted. But when you are trying to motivate people down the track you go back to how they felt the day after they got beaten by just one second.
The fire still burns.
