Emirates Team New Zealand takes 4th win in the 37th Louis Vuitton America’s Cup

A tough day for INEOS Britannia. Today they made sure they were positioned clear of the Kiwis at the pre-start and then looked strong from the start. It was a tense and tight race with both boats rounding  opposite windward marks at precisely the same time. But then the Kiwis gybed before reaching the left boundary with the narrowest of crossings. INEOS protested, but it was dismissed. Then the Kiwis worked on getting the lead and holding onto it.

On this six-lap course,  according to americascup.com, with the wind hovering around 10 knots and a dull cloud cover, Emirates Team New Zealand put on a masterclass of front-running, taking metres of leverage at every opportunity and defending the right side of the course upwind tenaciously.

The Brits had no choice but stay in the middle or to the left. By the final windward gate the Kiwis had a 24 second lead and by the finish, took the win by 23 seconds.

Dylan Fletcher, port helm on INEOS Britannia, reflected on the small margins saying: “We just focused on getting a good start. It was really nice, we squeezed them off and got the first proper cross, but couldn’t quite keep them behind – which was frustrating.”

Fletcher continued to answer the question how he felt about going forward, “I think that people have been doubting us from the start, but we’ve proved people wrong all along the way and we feel like we can take this to them, and we’ll just see how it goes on Wednesday. It’s disappointing but there’s a lot of belief and it’s not over yet.”

Stay tuned. Kiwis 4. Brits 0 in this first to 7 series known as the 37th Louis Vuitton America’s Cup..