Emirates Team New Zealand soundly beat Italy’s Luna Rossa Challenge on San Francisco Bay on Saturday in the first real race of the 34th America’s Cup, which in recent days looked like it might never come off.
Team New Zealand sped across the bay to finish with more than a five-minute lead over its Italian rival, solidifying its reputation as the challenger with the best chance of prying the America’s Cup away from defender Larry Ellison’s Oracle Team USA.
“We’ve got to be our own worst enemies in a way and be as critical as we can on performance,” Emirates TNZ skipper Dean Barker told reporters after the race.
“But in general I’m very, very happy with the way the team is working together.”
True competition had been held up by a series of misfortunes this year, including the death of one sailor and a dispute over boat design that recently threatened to derail the entire event before being resolved by an America’s Cup jury last week.
The race followed the resolution on Thursday of the controversy over design rules, which were changed to improve boat safety after the fatal accident in May that left Sweden’s challenger Artemis unable to sail. It marked the first real competition in the Luis Vuitton Cup, which officially started a week ago but had yet to see two boats compete.
Team New Zealand has logged more hours than Luna Rossa sailing the carbon-fibre AC72 catamarans, which have been criticized as dangerous and too unstable for the strong winds and rip currents in San Francisco Bay.
That was apparent on Saturday as Team New Zealand’s AC72 spent much more time than Luna Rossa’s yacht hydrofoiling with its hulls above the water during the long-awaited match-up.
New Zealand crossed the starting line first and built on its lead throughout the race. According to rules, Luna Rossa technically did not even complete the match because it crossed the finish line more than five minutes behind the winner.
The winner of the Louis Vuitton Cup, which runs through August, will challenge software mogul Ellison’s Oracle team, which won the America’s Cup in 2010 and is defending it this time.