Thoughts from the Blue

Photo: Stefano Gattini 

Well Team New Zealand are into the final of the Louis Vuitton Cup.

They got there by beating the Spanish in helter skelter sailing conditions this morning. The waves were pounding, the wind blowing. Just of the kind of conditions Kiwis love, just the kind of conditions our kids grow up sailing P-Class yachts in.

Dean Barker won the match at the start boxing the Spanish out. It was a good aggressive start for him and is a good start to end on before heading into the final against Luna Rossa.

The New Zealanders powered over the line well ahead and extended on every leg. The only concern for Team New Zealand in the race was the injury to bowman Jeremy Lomas who was hanging on to the spinnaker and big wave came whipping a bit of skin off his finger. But it appears he is okay.

Team New Zealand have come out of the semis in good shape. We went into this thing thinking Spain were easy opponents but they have turned out to be formidable opponents - when you come to Spain to sail the Spanish they are usually very good. I think this team is the same, they were very comfortable in their own environment. I think it was a good reality check for the Kiwis. It was interesting to see how they reacted to their losses. That was to come back pretty ruthlessly both times and take the Spanish apart.

So it is on to the final against Luna Rossa, what a match that will be.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 24th, 2007 at 9:20 am and is filed under America's Cup Teams, Americas Cup, Desafio Espanol, Emirates Team New Zealand, Sailing, Spain, Sports, Valencia, Weather, Yachting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.