Oracle Retains the Americas Cup & New Zealand the Respect

All images ACEA / Ricardo Pinto / Abner Knigman / Gilles Martin Raget. More at CSN Fb. Full reports at AmericasCup.com | What a Final Match to crown the best Americas Cup ever. Another day of full adrenaline right from the Start.
As usual it was a close one , and I’m always watching Oracle on the bareways in the breeze, today was no exception. Reaching Mark 1 OR went on a hard down pitch submerging both bows, but the platform landed pretty flat and the recovery was quite smooth as they could maintain good speed, nevertheless a scary moment for them. Check images below.
New Zealand had a good race and led all the way to Mark 2, they kept speed for a while upwind, but OR sailed error less & faster, just like past 8 races. If NZ were “Perfection” when the Final started Oracle ended being “Perfection ²”

I wanted New Zealand to win on the incredible work done quite earlier on this campaign, on imposing the Flying game and on their Class, even if they were thinking to return to Monos.
Coutts & Ellison deserve another chapter on Oracle choosing Cats for this edition and for those to come from now on. They also owe Darren Bundock some favors, I remember when they called him after Coutts went scuba diving to the bottom of the Bay with the 45..!

For the final outcome the Kiwis literally had bad luck on that key 13th cancelled race where they were a mile or less to win the Cup, nothing can be changed now but this just to remark they did everything they could to grab the victory.
Oracle too did Everything it was (im)possible to recover from the deepest hole, they raised like Phoenix from the ashes to overtake NZ with 11 wins coming from 8-1?. Forcing many of us feeling good with either of them winning.

I’m more than proud to have these two teams representing us in the pinnacle of our sport. Thank you guys (Shore, Design & Sailing Crew)  for the Guts while pushing the limits.
Oracle retained the Cup the hardest way showing what they are made off and Team New Zealand retained at large the well earned Respect through their entire history that includes now this 34th Cup edition.

Saying Barker was a Class Act was not free statement, Dean:  Being respected is no consolation prize, it is about everything a personal legacy should consist of. You have our full Respect for Life, keep going mate!

All being said yesterday on the last analysis which main concept  revolved around New Zealand being the leaders since day 1 and Oracle learning & finally outperforming them in the greatest comeback ever.

To reinforce this concept read these comments below from Ian Percy & Nathan Outteridge.
It is a good resume of what happened in this amazing Americas Cup, a tremendous success beyond the hardest critics and bad vibes pulled from thin air.

Ian Percy:
Truly feel for all at TNZ. Congrats for a excellent campaign, you took our sport to a new generation with your innovation and teamwork #ETNZ

As my best friend Bart Simpson would say…wow! Great comeback by Oracle that started over a year ago and finished in style today! #hatsoff #AC34

Nathan Otteridge:
“Like everyone in the world right now I am still in complete shock after watching the last week of this America’s Cup. Last week I was in San Francisco watching ETNZ completely smash Oracle and thought they had no chance. This week I’m in France at the 49er worlds and since arriving its been the complete opposite.

Amazing what can change in 1 week. Seriously impressive stuff by Oracle to take risks make changes and improve enough to overcome ETNZ.

Hats off to Dean Barker and all the boys at ETNZ if it wasn’t for these guys no one would have known that foiling 72 foot cats at almost 50kts of boat speed with bottom speeds of 35kts in the gybes was even possible. They were clear leaders in this cup every step of the way and could not have come closer to winning. Completely gutter for all Kiwis right now. Really looking forward to seeing where the cup heads now, going to be hard to top this one. Once again massive congratulations to Oracle for there unbelievable comeback”
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Later on the week some feedback from the experts we always consult on deep tech matters.