Emirates Team New Zealand retained the America's Cup

The 37th America's Cup in Barcelona ended with a convincing victory of the Defender — reigning Cup winner Emirates Team New Zealand with skipper Peter Burling at the helm retained the trophy. Team INNEOS Britannia, led by Sir Ben Ainslie, managed to win two races but the Kiwis were stronger in the other seven. On the 19th of October Emirates Team New Zealand officially made history as the first team to win the America's Cup three times in a row. How did they manage to?

A superior boat

Emirates Team New Zealand approached the 37th America's Cup as clear favourites. It's not just that the team of Grant Dalton and Peter Burling is strong in its own right — as a past winner, they were the ones to write the Protocol for the 37th America’s Cup, and what's even more important, they were the originators of the AC75 concept.

When the second-generation AC75 Taihoro was launched, she seemed deceptively similar to her victorious 2021 model predecessor, Te Rehutai. Within hours of the boat's launch in Auckland, the Kiwis were able to fly the yacht, showing just how confident they were at handling their new racing weapon. During the first tests in Barcelona, some of the New Zealanders' advanced engineering became apparent: they have developed a sophisticated mainsail control system and potentially automated controls that coordinate foils raising/lowering, mast rotation and headsail trim. On the water, the boat’s high, fast mode, tight tacking angles and speed out of manoeuvres indicated an impressive level of control by both helmsmen and flight controllers.

Cohesive crew

The New Zealanders' two previous Cup victories were won with new crew members — helmsman Peter Burling, nicknamed “Pistol Pete”, trimmer Blair Tuke (49er gold medallist) and Glen Ashby as skipper/trimmer/flight controller). After Jimmy Spithill and Francesco Bruni's 2021 Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli demonstrated the clear advantages of the twin helmsman system, Burling needed a partner in Emirates Team New Zealand. Nathan Outteridge, one of the greatest helmsmen of his generation, sat by his side. At the 37th America's Cup, their team helmed the boat with incredible precision, assisted by experienced trimmers Blair Tuke and Andy Maloney.

Convincing dominance

During the preliminary races, the New Zealanders only let one point slip away, losing only to American Magic. It was only an unfortunate accident that almost jeopardised their entire campaign, when Taihoro slipped off the crane while being loaded back ashore after one of the races in Barcelona and crashed onto her cradle with the sound of a real explosion. Luckily, the boat sustained almost no damage, except to the foils, which anyway were due to be upgraded for the final match.

The British challenger INNEOS Britannia intended to give the Kiwis a serious fight, especially as they had managed to beat them in the round robin stage (part of the qualifying regatta series where each team has to race against all the others one by one). By the way, the Italians from Luna Rossa managed to do the same.



But the Cup Final started with four consecutive wins for Emirates Team New Zealand. The New Zealand crew showed an advantage in tactics and speed, more often taking better positions when rounding buoys and maintaining a higher average speed during turns. Barcelona was flooded with black-shirted fans, arriving in huge numbers to support their team. Despite the pressure, Ben Ainslie's team were not going to give up and were able to take advantage on New Zealanders' mistakes in the stronger waves, winning two races. But on day five the Kiwis took to the water as focused as possible and easily increased their lead by winning two more races, taking the Cup to match-point at 6:2 score. In the last race the INNEOS crew did their best to beat Team NZ at the start and at one point they managed to lead by at least 30 m, but the Kiwis, in their typical fashion, calmly steered the duel to victory.

Ben Ainslie paid a tribute to the NZ team win saying: ‘This is the best team in America's Cup history'.