Play nzherald.co.nz's rugby Pick the Score competition - go to: pickthescore.nzherald.co.nz
KEY POINTS:
It didn't take long to blow the which-is-the-fastest-boat theory out of the water, then.
In the first race of yesterday's final fling in the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series, Emirates Team NZ, sailing with a great deal of authority, beat Alinghi by 29s to level the final series 1-1 in the best of five finale.
What it also did was lay to rest the Alinghi-inspired disquiet over the relative speeds of the two "identical" boats being used in the finals - NZL84 and NZL92. The LVPS is not, as all were at pains to say, the America's Cup but every now and then some America's Cup-style mind games broke through.
As the regatta neared its end, the rumours raced up and down the Viaduct. Alinghi were threatening, so the story went, to withdraw if Team NZ didn't agree to swap boats for every race.
They felt NZL92 was the faster boat and didn't want to be lumbered with the slower NZL84 for the entirety of the final. They protested officially. This got firmly up Team NZ's nose and lodged there, buzzing like a bee while they shook their heads at the irritant.
Alinghi did have something of a point. Most match racing championships do, indeed, share the boats in finals but Team NZ had responsibilities to sponsors and had promised that they would deck themselves out in their full sponsored finery for the finals - meaning the boats could not be swapped.
It all came to a head at the press conference on Thursday which followed Alinghi's defeat of BMW Oracle to make the final against Team NZ. Alinghi skipper Brad Butterworth attended and won the draw for the boats in the final and then drew NZL92.
End of protest. He was happy, Butterworth said, to sail NZL92 for the entire finals. One Alinghi team member said his team firmly believed NZL92 was faster. So did Ben Ainslie of Britain's TeamOrigin as well as commentator Peter Montgomery.
Team NZ said what they have said from the outset: We don't care which boat we sail in.
So, legitimate point or mind games, the sort of manipulative games at which many consider Butterworth to be a master?
There are figures that suggest NZL84 might be slower than NZL92 - Team NZ raced NZL92 in the last America's Cup in Valencia, after all - and that USA 87 was slower than USA 98. In the first round robin, for example, the crews on NZL92 won the races 7-3. It was 8-2 for USA98 over 87.
But these are far from conclusive. In many cases, the lesser crews (if they will forgive us for so terming them) were sailing the "slower" boats and such stark statistics can never take into account mistakes, windshifts, start advantages and the like.
However, the simple truth is that the boats - Oracle's and Team NZ's - are not equal. They were built with one object in mind: to see which is faster. They were constructed to a general theme but play slightly different tunes.
Ainslie said yesterday: "The two boats are pretty even. In lights airs, winds under 10 knots. NZL92 is a little bit better than 84. It is better in things like downspeed tacking. But that's only in those conditions. When it is like it was on Friday or yesterday, the two boats are very even."
Just about everyone before this regatta and after practising in the four boats declared that, while there might be some differences, they would not result in significant boatspeed advantages.
Oracle skipper Russell Coutts held to that view. He had won in both boats, he said, and he suspected most teams had.
