The New Catracing Power House: Team New Zealand wins Louis Vuitton Cup

Favorites in my mind for a long time now, Team New Zealand is simply a Machine. Just when you think they have a too good design, build & shore crew to be true , these top notch ex monohull guys, including the ‘old grumpy’ Grant Dalton, manage to excel in the new two hull game proposed by Oracle for these two past Cups.

To win the Americas Cup you needed to learn how to sail multihulls.
And this team has learned pretty quick. Having Glenn Ashby didn´t ‘hurt’ that process either…
People are assigning too much weight on TNZ boat advantage over Luna Rossa, but my view is the Kiwis just sailed flawless perfection in each race.

Looking the stats also proves this in a way,
on how Luna Rossa could not optimize even the number of gybes / tacks plus the extra meters sailed due to those misses. The most clear evidence on LR not having a complete grasp of the boat was on the reach legs, any cat can sail fast at that angle no matter its design, but the Italian team could not maintain a straight speed line in most of the of those starts beyond been outgamed in the previous two minutes by TNZ. I think Chris Draper gaved his best and I’m pretty sure a long time multi expert would have been a great addition onboard. Artemis crew with their boat limitations were two times more agressive and sometimes even faster than LR. 
In the long term  Luna Rossa have started pretty good in this new ballgame and I hope the keep pushing for Multis for next Cups.

TNZ fully dominate their beast even before the Round Robins, so the major factor was boat handling and crew coordination taken to perfection.

Both Oracle AC72s are fast, and Spithill is an accomplished catsailor too, he learned the hard way crewing for Ashby when he was in Oracle, and later he had Bundy  joining the team. Bundock is sailing with Ainslie in the 2nd boat, and I wonder how next trainings will end.
The good news for the OR is they have two great crews , the bad news is New Zealand keeps improving every minute and it seems there is no limit for their ambition and combined skills.
The Super Tractor will help a ‘little’ too.

I foresee a great battle between them. We haven´t seen Oracle racing for real and they might end being faster than TNZ. (Again , how much faster????)  But I still go with New Zealand to take the Cup. 
To beat them you’d better reduce your error maring to a flat zero.

All in all I doubt Dalton and his syndicate will go back to Monos after this experience….
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More info from ETNZ available at https://etnzblog.com/ Today’s pictures are here, video here.