At the end the pictures were more reminiscent of a trip. The events on board were pleasantly approachable Slow down now also for normal sailors, unlike during the races in which the boats fly over the water at an almost inhuman pace in the America’s Cup. Foil sailing at top speed can be admired from the outside, but not always understood. But now champagne flowed onto the deck, where the sailors ran around barefoot and hugged each other in the sunshine off Barcelona. As has been the case all week, the luxury yachts could be seen in the background, giving you the best view of the action while sailing – and one of the richest people in the world set off from there.
Bernard Arnault, owner of the Cup’s main sponsor LVMH and, in this role, conveniently equipped with fabulous access to champagne, also had no problems getting on board the Slow down to come. There were not too many seas on this glorious Saturday when history was made at the America’s Cup: for the third time in a row, Emirates Team New Zealand won the Auld Mug, the famous trophy. This has never happened in the modern era of competition.
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Of course, this didn’t come as a surprise. In order to optimize the weight, the champagne was of course only loaded on board after the final finish. In truth, the New Zealanders could have brought a few bottles with them much earlier, so dominantly had they sailed through the course in front of Barcelona all week.
They gained a 4-0 lead on the first two days of competition, when it quickly became clear that the boat was far superior to the challenger from Great Britain – the Britannia, led by helmsman Ben Ainslie. It took several clear New Zealand mistakes to briefly create tension: after two botched races, Ainslie and his crew reduced the score to 2:4 before the New Zealanders found their way back to their familiar mode. On Friday they won both races, on Saturday they converted their first match point and ultimately won the cup 7-2.
“The team still has bad memories of dealing with match points from before me.”
It was a performance by the New Zealanders that also commanded a lot of respect from their opponents. “A big compliment to the New Zealand team,” Ainslie sent to the opponents in a first interview: “What a great campaign and a great team. In my opinion they are the best team of all time in the America’s Cup. It’s an incredible achievement, so congratulations to her.”
On Board there Slow down The celebrated man was the now three-time Cup winner Peter Burling. Not everyone had expected the helmsman to have such dominance in advance: If anything, it was said, the starting maneuvers were a weakness for the New Zealanders, who weren’t the first to cross the starting line on Saturday either – but acted almost flawlessly on the track at high speed.
“The team has bad memories of dealing with match points from the time before me, so we’re happy that we got it right today,” said Burling, referring to the origin of New Zealand’s dominance: 2013, after a 9th 8-8 defeat despite an 8-1 lead against Oracle Team USA, New Zealand, which was crazy about sports and especially sailing, suffered badly – but then turned all the adjustment screws more consistently than ever before in order to win back the cup that belonged to the “Team of five Million” is dedicated to the New Zealanders at home.
All challenger teams are financially supported at the highest level, billionaires like Jim Ratcliffe in the case of the Britannia or Patrizio Bertelli in the case of the Luna Rossa team from Italy, they put a lot of money into boat development – and yet they were left behind by the Kiwis. In the end, the mix of experience and perfectionism with which the sport of sailing is practiced there is the outstanding element. “Everyone here has worked incredibly hard,” said skipper Nathan Outerridge after the win: “This is not just a sailing competition, it is also a competition of the engineers and designers who have spent three years building this boat. It’s the people who make the difference.”
Outerridge was still sitting in his cramped racing berth during the interview, he looked around his boat briefly while he talked about his team: “The people who are all coming on board here,” he added, then said goodbye, climbed out of the cockpit and devoted himself to the champagne that was on board the Slow down floss.