I watched the fifth and, as it turned out, deciding match of the America's Cup race held off the shores of New Zealand this past weekend. And I guess I should not be surprised that the Swiss-owned team (as fellow Daynoter John Dominik correctly points out the teams are multinational - see his post here) won going away.
And as in two of the previous races, the Kiwis had an equipment failure when, in this case, their spinnaker pole (sometimes called a spinnaker boom - the pole used to extend the bottom of the spinnaker sail beyond the edge of the boat, and to secure the corner of the sail) broke on the fourth leg of the race.
Still, the Kiwis had a strange sense of tactics. It was clear that the straight line speed of both boats was very close, although the Swiss may have been slightly faster. But the Kiwis had a distinct advantage in maneuvering. That is, they could turn faster and come out going faster than the Swiss. Given this, you would think they would attack the Swiss by tacking upwind and gybing downwind - thus taking advantage of their turning speed.
But to a great extent they did not. Even though, when they did, they made impressive gains on the Swiss boat. Only to fall back when they stopped attacking. It is really beyond me as to what they were thinking.
Happy Girls Day - Aloha!
