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VALENCIA - The Woolshed went eerily quiet. Hundreds of Kiwi fans had been hooting and hollering as Emirates Team New Zealand looked as though they had performed the impossible.
Taking advantage of a rare Alinghi mistake and with Ray Davies correctly calling a major wind shift, the New Zealand boat came back from the dead. Almost.
Saddled with a penalty in the rough and tumble with Alinghi on the second beat, Team New Zealand swallowed up Alinghi's lead of over 100m and headed for the line.
The volume at the Woolshed, a de facto Kiwi fan headquarters in an old cargo shed, went to 'max'. But Alinghi recovered as Team New Zealand had to do its penalty turn before crossing the line, losing momentum. The two boats came together. The Woolshed hushed. No-one could tell who had won. People looked quizzically at each other. Shoulders were shrugged. A dead heat would have meant a re-sail.
Then the devastating news that Alinghi had nicked it by a second in one of the most stupendous finishes in America's Cup match history. The Cup was gone. Again. But the Kiwi fans one of the features of this regatta recovered. They trooped out along the canal to cheer the Kiwi boat in with gusto.
They were all there. The ValeNZia t-shirts. The flag-wavers. People with loudhailers so they could throw their voices out to the crew. Buzzy Bee signs. Rude t-shirts. One woman dressed head to toe in impossibly hot black, heavy clothes seemingly impervious to the mid-30s heat. The two men who stood, bare-chested on the bridge fence, waving to the boat and who were dared to jump in the water by the grinning crew, finding a welcome light relief from their narrow, gutting loss.
Grant Dalton stood in the bow, a beer in hand and saluted the fans who had saluted them so many times through this regatta. They certainly didn't lose the match because of a lack of support.
"They did bloody well," said one. "They didn't win it but it could have gone either way a few times."
"They've been brave," said another. "The boat hasn't looked quite as fast as Alinghi but they gave it everything and I don't think any New Zealander could ask for more."
