Defender Team New Zealand and Italian challenger Luna Rossa won one race each Wednesday on the first day of the 36th match for sailing America’s Cup at Auckland, New Zealand, adding to the perpetual Cup enigma of which has the quicker boat.Team New Zealand won the start and led around all marks to win the first race by 31 seconds, seeming to confirm the expectation they might have a boat-speed advantage.But Luna Rossa crossed the start line first in the second race and, in a classic contest of tacking and covering, held out New Zealand by a shrinking margin of seven seconds. New Zealand gained on the last two legs and came home fast on the last downwind but couldn’t pass.The leading boat has been dominant in most races in the regatta so far and again, in winds of between 12 and 18 knots, there were no passing lanes on the Hauraki Gulf on Wednesday.“I though the boys sailed a great race,” Luna Rossa helmsman Jimmy Spithill said. “We had quite a lot of maneuvers, quite a lot of tacks and just kept the boat going well.“It was quite a show of strength I thought to bounce back well after that first race.”Team New Zealand looked quick, sailing low and fast upwind and low downwind in the first race. While they managed to close up the second race with a strong final beat, it was clear that in the conditions Wednesday, they didn’t hold a decisive advantage.“It was no secret we haven’t raced in a little while and it was good to get that first race under our belt and we felt we did a really good job in that pre-start,” New Zealand helmsman Peter Burling said. “In the second pre-start just one mistake and life’s pretty hard for the rest of the race.“We felt like the boats were pretty even today and you just had to do the right thing and sail the shifts. But we’re pretty happy we’ve got a tool here we can win this thing with.”According to the lore of the 170-year-old Cup, no one can tell who has the faster boat until they cross the start line in the first race on the first day of the match. In the America’s Cup, it’s said, the faster boat is everything.
Source: Defender Team NZ and Luna Rossa tied 1-1 in America’s Cup
