After weeks of watching the America’s Cup races on TV each morning, it is now all over. Last week the country was buoyed up with a large lead on the scoreboard, and it only seemed a matter of a day or two until Team New Zealand had the cup firmly in their hands. But it was not to be, and over the last week Team Oracle won race after race, and our advantage was whittled away. Today was “Do or Die”, the last race in the series with both teams on 8 points each. Congratulations to Team Oracle who won so convincingly. And commiserations to Dean Barker and Team New Zealand, who sailed their hearts out, but it wasn’t to be. We are so proud of the gutsy effort they put into their racing, day after day, in very challenging conditions. Too much wind, not enough wind, fog, mishaps, whatever was thrown at them, they met it head on.
So there will be no more watching TV at 8.00am every morning, while we eat our breakfast. We all became armchair sailors, marvelling at the speed of those huge catamarans as they zipped through the water standing up on those tall foils. It wasn’t sailing as it used to be, with these huge, quite fragile high tech craft. The race is now over, and life returns to normal.
2 comments:
I suspect for most of the world is was "life as normal" throughout the event. We didn't know it was happening here in the UK until last night when it was announced on the ITV national news.
How much did the NZ tax payer fork out so the rich boys could play?
About 36 million, we believe. Plus whatever former Warehouse owner Mr Tindall put in. But it wasn't enough to compete with Oracle's multi millionare backer's very deep pockets.
However, our Govt is well pleased with the exposure that NZ recieved, so considers it money well spent.
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