The Country Sport BreakfastTeam New Zealand have won the third America's Cup race against Britannia by 52 seconds off the coast of Barcelona to extend their lead to 3-nil in the first-to-seven series.
The result was dictated by a near collision before the start.
Britannia was penalized and required to drop 75 meters behind the defenders off the line.
The fourth scheduled race was postponed due to fickle breezes.
Gold Sport well to the America's Cup now and Team New Zealand and Anios. Britannia came within centimeters of disaster in a prestart duel this morning, as the Defenders moved out to a three nil lead in the America's Cup matches in Barcelona. Joining us on the CSB this morning, a man on the dock of the bay, Chris Reeve, morning, Chris.
Good mate. I like the Sol reference there. What a tune.
Yeah, great song. Well that was a near miss for both boats really, and britann you paid the price, didn't they.
Yeah, that was rather intense. I mean we had always expected the prestarts we're going to be pretty fiery between these two teams, but I don't think anyone really expected them to come with and like you say, centimeters, that was fractions away from a disastrous moment. Any sort of contact probably damages one or both of the boats. And yeah, that could could have really been disastrous for both teams.
Well, it was disastrous in a way for Britannia because they were ruled to infringed by the jury and they got pinged, didn't they.
They did. And I spoke to a couple of the Team New Zealand guys afterwards and they were pretty confident that they were the team and with the right of way in that situation. It's quite interesting the move the Brits tried to do in that situation was one that they've done quite a lot throughout the regatta and Team New Zealand have been studying that and it was almost as if they had come up with a way of countering it, and today that worked.
And it's hard to come back when you get pinged what is it, seventy five meet a penalty. It's hard to come back from that when the boats are pretty even, isn't it?
It is? It is And a day like today, where one side of the course seemed to be quite a lot stronger breeze wise than the other, Team New Zealand were just able to take over that side of the course and protect it the whole way and basically that's that one than the race, there were no opportunities for the Brits to to really have a chance to gain on them, and we heard kind of halfway through the race, port helmsman Dylan Fletcher basically saying, well, we can't really do anything else, and what we're doing, and that was just basically summed up their race. Tim yw Zellan had that one critical moment and they made it count.
The two boats are almost identical in their average speeds, both up when and down when. The Kiwi's had a slightly better average VMG, sailing about eight hundred meters less than the bridges the Brits. Is there any way for the Brits to close the gap now?
I assume? So there's always like they always say that the development never stops in this competition until the last race is sailed. So you know they're going to go back, They're going to review all the data, They're going to look at what they can do differently, what they can I guess what they can change to make those gains anyway. Yeah, like you say, both boats pretty pretty consistent speed wise. Yesterday Team New Zealand were faster upwind and in the US Britannia were faster downland, and today they were very much the same.
Three races, three wins for the Kiwis by forty one seconds, twenty seven seconds, and fifty two seconds. Do you think we're looking at like a straight seven match win for Team New Zealand or we were jumping the gun a bit.
I think there's a lot of people who might be starting to think that way. I think in the Ospitannial are still a competitive team these races. Yeah, like like you said, three milts, but there's some close racing and like yesterday's second race, a couple of shifts go the BRIT's way and they win that race. So I don't see them getting swept, but it's very hard to come back from here.
So one race postpone today because of light winds, that's going to be sailed again tomorrow morning, New Zealand time can if the conditions are similar, can you see being much the same aim?
Yeah, I think so. The prestarts are always going to be very very important in this sort of competition where the match racing. You've got the best sailors in the world, and it's very hard to yes come back from a bad start. And the conditions we've had out here so far have been the sea state has been a bit lumpy, and the wind has been pretty shifty and pretty inconsistent. So on a day like that, if you're the lead boat and you're able to pick the ships first and you get a huge advantage.
Chris, what's the crowds like, they're sort of watching from the dock of the bay that what's the atmosphere like.
Oh, it's awesome out here. I went out to the Team New Zealand dock out yesterday morning and I was amazed at how many people were lining the dock, lining the team base. All of a sudden, there's just been an influx of peewe's over the last few days. It's pretty impressive really, and all the fan zones down here are packed every day. I've seen plenty of people walking around town and America's Cup merch at New Zealand Andania, be at some of the other teams, or even just the event itself, and even from the opening ceremony the other night, the beach was absolutely packed. It was a great atmosphere and a great a great.
Night, fantastic. Well. We look forward to that postponed race being sale tomorrow morning. Chris, thanks for joining us from.
Bassalona anytime, mate. Thank you.
Chris Reeve reporting for the New Zealand Herald and for Gold Sport here on the Country Sport Breakfast. So that postponed race will be one o'clock tomorrow morning. Then they get a few days off and I think the scheduled race is five and six will be on Thursday morning at one o'clock, so we'll
