Toyota dockside in Bermuda: Martin Tasker - Team NZ's dreadful mental rollercoaster

The longest day of the year fell this week but in truth it's been the longest five days.

This America's Cup hiatus has been hard to endure on so many levels especially for the supporters of Emirates Team New Zealand still scarred by the far longer torture they suf-fered in San Francisco.

What it means is that we end up on a dreadful mental roller-coaster where the mind flies off into a happy dreamland of what might be and then hauls itself back and administers a good slapping to stave off any more presumption.

We hear it's stress city in New Zealand and here in Bermuda we have a Kiwi nurse staying with us in our house who has been finding the positives, by informing us that stress is not always a bad thing.

She's introduced us to eustress which is a term for positive stress, as opposed to distress, which refers to negative stress.

So eustress it is, because it motivates, helps us cope, feels exciting and improves perfor-mance.

Clearly the sailing team has plenty of it if the comments of America's Cup skipper turned commentator Ken Read are anything to go by. He couldn't believe how relaxed they were two days out from the resumption of sailing.

Read has also created a stir by saying he's changed his flights to go home early, so con-vinced is he of Emirates Team New Zealand's superior pace.

Of course that's just the sort of comment the seasoned pessimists don't want to hear. Their catch-cry remains "It ain't over till it it's over" along with "Keep a lid on it!" They have no truck with optimism, a state born out of crushing disappointment .

As ever in this campaign, laughter proves to be the best medicine and five long days have allowed all manner of humour to fester and grow, from the gallows variety to the highly imaginative conspiracy theories.

Oracle boss Russell Coutts stating that "this time the Kiwis have the better package" in-stantly lights the paranoia fuse as sceptics ponder on exactly why he would say that and what motivation lies behind it.

And given Oracle's astonishing come back last time round the paranoia is perfectly understandable.

So what has truly been going on these past five days? Well, Oracle has indeed been busy-as, as they say, both in the shed and
on the water as the "Americans" seek to bridge the speed gap either through modifications to USA17 or copy-cat crew manoeuvres or both.

To quote Ken Read again;" They're going to have to pull a major rabbit out the hat." And history says they can.

But Emirates Team New Zealand has been equally busy with more mods to Aotearoa, more testing on the water and more honing of their slick boat-handling for the sailors.

So all's good in the Kiwi hood. No worries. We can rest easy. Forget the conspiracy theo-ries. Give the fingernails a breather. Put away the four-leafed clover. Uncross the fingers. Savour the moment. Enjoy a good night's sleep...

Yeah right.

Go the Kiwis.