A capsize, close racing, a cancellation and compliance complaints capped off round-robin action in the America's Cup challenger series - now the focus turns to boat development.
Team UK celebrate finishing top of the America's Cup Challenger Selection Series round robin. Photo: Studio Borlenghi
After an eventful round robin series Team UK secured a spot in the finals and wait to see if a repaired American Magic or a hurting Luna Rossa come through the semi-finals on top.
Whether American Magic have just done repairs to their damaged AC75 or taken the opportunity to make improvements to Patriot will become clear this week.
Prior to the capsize the Americans didn't lack speed and the other challengers said they expected the New York Yacht Club's entry to return to the water and be competitive.
American Magic are required to have their boat ready for inspection by the regatta's measurement committee on Wednesday afternoon - 48 hours before racing resumes.
Skipper Terry Hutchinson said the repair work is ahead of schedule but he said it was too soon to say when they would be back on the water this week
Hutchinson credited assistance from Team New Zealand boat builders for getting them on track to return for the semi-finals.
"The thing that we are reminded is the really what the defender has done for us and what they've helped us achieve, because certainly without them it wouldn't have happened," Hutchinson said.
"We have nothing but high thanks for Team New Zealand for what they did."
Team New Zealand's sailors and shore crew came to American Magic's rescue. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
However, experienced New Zealand yacht designer and former technical director for America's Cup team Team Korea, Brett Bakewell-White, said Team New Zealand's assistance was not selfless.
"Whilst it's very generous and they're doing for all the good reasons, it's also to the advantage of particularly Team New Zealand as defender because if they lost American Magic from the event it reduces the impact of the event and the success of the event overall.
"So it's to everyones advantage to have all the teams sailing for as long as possible."
Bakewell-White said currently all the teams' boats have design differences but that would change in the coming weeks as the new class of boat continued to develop.
The cancellation of racing in World Series regattas in 2020 due to Covid-19 had delayed all teams' development, Bakewell-White said.
"There's no real agreement on what's the quickest or best solution yet," he said.
"We haven't seen the level of development that probably you would have expected prior to the Cup because of the lack of sailing, so now we're seeing an accelerated rate of development and improvement and that's probably the scariest thing for Team New Zealand as defender is how much are the other teams going to be able to catch up and maybe pass them in some areas."
Team New Zealand sailing in Auckland. Photo: Emirates Team New Zealand
Experienced skipper Sir Ben Ainslie claimed the British still have a long way to go in terms of boat development.
Victory in the Challenger Selection Series round robin brought them three weeks away from racing and the opportunity to put the boat back in the shed.
After some early struggles, Team UK found an extra level of performance in their boat but Ainslie said they still had list of things they wanted to change.
"We can maybe make some slightly bigger upgrades than perhaps we would have done before but obviously we can't really talk about that, needless to say we're trying to get faster like all of these other teams out here.
"As we all know that's the secret to trying to win the America's Cup it's always that constant improvement and trying to get faster and faster every day."
Any changes made to Britannia would need to be by the book.
The team had already broken the AC75 class rule once this regatta - with a non-performance enhancing modification to their mainsail - and were at risk of being disqualified from a race in the finals series if they did it again.
Team UK's second AC75 Britannia. Photo: Studio Borlenghi
Team UK's infringement was brought to the attention of the rule makers by Luna Rossa - and the Brits were fined.
Ainslie said the rules for the new class of boat leave plenty of grey areas and teams should not spend time nit-picking the opposition.
"It's time for teams to either put up or shut up in terms of complaints because to be disqualified for something that is non-performance enhancing and lose a race at this level - I think that is how the game should be played."
Racing resumes on Friday with American Magic and Luna Rossa contesting the best of seven semi-finals.
