led the 28-boat fleet up to that moment it was quite a cruel outcome. ‘We had come to win, not to finish second,’ said Groupama co-skipper Pierre Pennec. ‘It is disappointing but that’s life. Spindrift closed out a 31pt deficit during the final coastal courses. They are a solid crew. They made errors, in particular being “black flagged” on stadium courses. But they won. Cheers to them.’ Team leader Franck Cammas had this reaction: ‘It is really tough… it is always worst to be beaten right on the line. But this Tour was rich from a sporting point of view with a much bigger fleet – and we also discovered some very talented new sailors. So a great event apart from the outcome for us!’ Patrice Carpentier
NEW ZEALAND
Since the bitter disappointment of the 2013 America’s Cup failure Emirates Team New Zealand have been traversing tumultuous and difficult times, so the first opportunity to escape the dangers and treacheries of land and get back to the water was awaited with keen anticipation. With a new-look team built around the hugely accomplished Glenn Ashby as skipper and the exciting talents of 49er aces Peter Burling and Blair Tuke, the opening event of the America’s Cup World Series in Portsmouth offered a chance to get back to core business.
In the rebuild of the team Ashby was always going to play a prominent role. Even when a place was still envisaged for Dean Barker inside the team Ashby was earmarked to lead the sailing team as sailing director.
It was almost taken for granted, however, that Burling, as helms- man would be skipper. On the other hand, Ashby taking on that role makes more sense: it leaves young Burling to concentrate on what he does best, while the more seasoned Ashby can negotiate the minefield of politics and onshore battles that abound. No formal announcement of this arrangement was made so it was something of a surprise when the affable Australian wearing the skipper mantle took the podium at the opening media confer- ence in Portsmouth. However, he made sure his arrival was duly noted and that he was more than up to the challenge when he presented Oracle skipper Jimmy Spithill with a legal kingpost, a pointed reminder that this was a team found to be cheating during the previous America’s Cup World Series.
Spithill has never passed up an opportunity to play on traditional Australian-Kiwi rivalries to goad ETNZ and rub salt in the wounds of their unlikely 2013 defeat. In response, here was a fellow Aus- tralian, whose multiple world titles are unencumbered by any hint of arrogance or questions of integrity, driving a stake firmly into the ground. Making the gesture even more effective was that it was done with mischievous humour and a light touch… Although the Kiwis came into the UK event as underdogs given the upheaval of their rebuild and a lack of time on the water, the result was a pleasing second place behind the local favourites led by Ben Ainslie. In the end Portsmouth represented a hugely expensive logistical exercise to complete only two races, so nobody is going to take the result as a definitive indicator of where the teams stand. But, for a team battling to re-establish its credentials, it was a very helpful stepping stone. It will also have come as a welcome boost to CEO Grant Dalton, still trawling boardrooms in search of funding. Dalton has maintained a distinctly low profile in New Zealand in recent months but used Portsmouth to expunge some ghosts in an extensive profile with the New Zealand Herald, which has taken a hostile approach in its post San Francisco coverage. The profile tells us very little we didn’t know already – and certainly doesn’t shed any more light on why the team snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in 2013 – but it does paint a more sympathetic and complex picture than the usual black and white caricature that Dalton’s own public hard-man demeanour encourages. Maybe the public love will return and the first steps in Portsmouth support that prospect.
For the Cup organisers the less-than-fulsome response to Portsmouth must be cause for concern. The enormous emphasis in recent cycles on making the Cup into a commercial TV product has come at a cost to many of the very things that give the Cup value – among them nationality, the contest of design and
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