Photo: Emirates Team New Zealand
On Tuesday the Emirates Team New Zealand beat the defending Oracle Team USA in the fifth race of the America’s Cup finals with a victory of 1 minute, 5 seconds on San Francisco Bay. This is the fourth Kiwi victory. The challenger Kiwis only have to win five more races to take the Cup, while Oracle needs to win ten races in order to keep it.
Shortly before the scheduled start of Race 6, Oracle Team USA radioed in to the race committee that it was playing its one postponement card of the regatta, meaning the race was scrubbed until Thursday. Skipper Jimmy Spithill said Oracle Team USA needs to regroup and make some changes.
The Oracle crew has been making more mistakes than the Kiwis and there has been the perception that the Kiwi boat may have better hull speed than the Oracle AC72. Thus far, the Kiwis have been simply out-sailing Oracle. It remains to be seen whether Larry Ellison, the software billionaire who runs Oracle Corp, will make changes to the crew, the racing tactics or the sailboat.
Oracle has started these races in a hole, after being docked two points after being found guilty of cheating in the preliminary round of racing in what has been described as the worst cheating scandal in the 162-year history of the America’s Cup. In the best of nine series, that meant that Oracle has to win a total of eleven races to retain the Cup. Currently having won a single race, its position in the best of nine ranking stands at minus 1.
Even though I figured the Kiwis would win going into this series, I had hopes; but, ugh, that terribly slow tack was excruciating to watch as Oracle let their lead completely evaporate.