The two teams met on Sunday and the Kiwis won by more than 2 minutes despite losing their jib on Leg 3 of the seven-leg course. Previously, the Kiwis defeated the Italian team by nearly five and a half minutes on July 13.
Neither team was on the water on Monday, instead opting for a day of maintenance.
“We spent the day working on our boat,” said Dean Barker, skipper of Emirates Team New Zealand. “We’re still adding things and modifying. It’s hard to find the balance between practicing and developing the boat. It’s a speed race, so you have to keep making the boat faster and faster. We still have things to do to make the boat fast enough to get in the right position going into the Louis Vuitton Cup Final.”
Although the Italians couldn’t crack a jib-less Emirates Team New Zealand, skipper Max Sirena was happy that they were able to take 2 minutes off their deficit from earlier in the regatta.
“We sailed much better compared to the first race,” said Sirena. “We were going better against them when they had their jib up. We need to work a lot still and we knew since Day 1 that by starting so late the only option to close gap was to do all the development process during round robin.”
Tuesday’s race is scheduled to start at 12:15 pm PT and will be broadcast globally on the America’s Cup YouTube channel, subject to territorial restrictions, beginning at 12:00 pm. You can also follow the action on the official America’s Cup app or Virtual Eye.
No comments:
Post a Comment