And so it goes (went)


It was not just Sir Ben Ainslie who left Barcelona accepting that ‘Emirates Team New Zealand is the best sailing team in history’. We would add to that one rider, which is that the word TEAM should be capitalised


THE WINNERS – Ivor Wilkins In an America’s Cup series that marked a number of notable milestones Emirates Team New Zealand’s 7-2 win over Ineos Britannia tops the charts, securing a unique place in the America’s Cup’s long history as the first team in the modern era to score a hat-trick. Victory in Barcelona in 2024 came after


winning against Oracle Team USA in Bermuda in 2017 and successfully defend- ing the Cup against Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli three and a half years ago in Auckland. Within that achievement was another


milestone, when ETNZ skipper Peter Burl- ing, who already holds the record as the youngest ever helmsman to win the Amer- ica’s Cup (aged 26 in 2017), set a new all- time record of 22 Cup Match wins. Burling


44 SEAHORSE


claimed both records at the expense of Australian Jimmy Spithill, who scored 17. For Britain, Ineos Britannia’s Louis


Vuitton Cup victory earned its first return to the Cup Match arena in 60 years. The last time a British yacht competed in the Match was 1964, when Sovereign lost 4-0 to Constellation. Sir Ben Ainslie, the most decorated


Olympic sailor of all time, served his America’s Cup apprenticeship on non- British teams – OneWorld, Emirates Team NZ, Oracle Team USA – always with the goal of ultimately leading a British chal- lenge. In 2012 he formed his own team and led challenges under the Royal Yacht Squadron banner in 2017 in Bermuda and in 2021 in Auckland. Immediately after the conclusion of hostilities in Barcelona Ainslie recommitted to the Cup pilgrimage. ‘The America’s Cup has always been an


ambition,’ he said. ‘To win the Cup for Britain, where it all started. That’s the motivation, to get that Cup back to Britain for the first time.’ While that goal remains elusive, win-


ning the Louis Vuitton Cup was a mile- stone in itself. Ineos Britannia claimed another milestone with its two wins on Day 4 of the Cup Match. They were the first British victories in a Cup Match in 90


years, equalling in a single day Britain’s best-ever Cup result. Aviation pioneer Sir TOM Sopwith’s


Endeavour scored twice against Harold Vanderbilt’s Rainbow in the acrimonious match of 1934, remembered for the famous headline ‘Britannia rules the waves and America waives the rules’. Italy’s 7-4 loss in the challenger final


brought about yet more Cup milestones. Jimmy Spithill – an eight-time Cup veteran and two-time winner – announced he was retiring from active Cup racing, while team boss Patrizio Bertelli immediately committed to mounting yet another chal- lenge – an unprecedented seventh cam- paign (not counting the Bermuda regatta, which he entered but then abandoned in protest when the Cup rule was changed). Spithill’s America’s Cup career began


when as a freckle-faced 20-year-old he led a feisty young Australian team in the 2000 regatta in Auckland. Over the intervening 24 years he became an America’s Cup fix- ture and one of the characters of the sport. Never slow to needle or torment his


opponents, ‘Pitbull’, as he is known, will be best remembered for leading the San Francisco comeback of all time, when Oracle came from 8-1 down to defeat Emirates Team New Zealand 9-8.


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