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After almost a week of waiting Team New Zealand finally got a win on the board in the Louis Vuitton Cup.
After the opening four days of racing were cancelled due to a lack of wind, a shock loss to Mascalzone Latino and then another day's racing cancelled yachting fans were beginning to wonder just when the top ranked challenger was going to get a mark beside its name.
This morning (NZT) in a somewhat hazy Valencia it happened.
The New Zealanders steamrolled Italians +39 to win by a massive two minutes 41s.
In the fickle breeze Team New Zealand punched over the startline 3 seconds ahead of their rivals.
"We wanted to be to the right," Team New Zealand tactician Terry Hutchinson said.
"They got the favoured side off the start but they did it at the risk at being slow. We got a nice start close enough to the weather end that when we could tack to port right away we were able to capitalise the speed gain out of the start."
The Kiwis flew around the top mark 1m 22s ahead of the Italians gaining considering in the second half of the first beat.
From there the Italians, with their bandaged up version five mast, failed to come with in a country mile of NZL92.
For Team New Zealand the win will go some way toward easing their first match loss to Mascalzone Latino.
Their second match of the day against Areva Challenge was postponed due to unsufficient wind.
Team New Zealand are now scheduled to face Areva Challenge and Desafio Espanol tonight (NZT).
The most interesting race this morning was Team Shosholoza's hit out against Chris Dickson's BMW Oracle Racing.
The South Africans led the Americans around the first lap of the course but let them back in the game through errors.
Shosholoza led by 27 seconds at the top mark which was reduced to 21s at the bottom mark after the South Africans trawled their spinnaker.
Oracle pounced on the mistake and powered into the lead early in the second beat before going on to win by 47 seconds.
The match, like Team New Zealand's race against Mascalzone Latino, proved no matter if you are a big team or not ---- if you are behind getting past your opponent, no matter who is it, is going to be tricky.
