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Oracle won’t catch us: Team NZ coach

“Captain” Murray Jones doesn’t profess to be a mind-reader or a fortune teller, yet he thinks he has a fair idea of what will be going on inside the walls of Oracle Team USA right now. Whatever they’re plotting, Jones is sure it won’t be enough to overcome the all-round supremacy of his team, Emirates Team New Zealand in the 2017 America’s Cup match.

The defenders never expected to be 0-3 down in the first-to-seven contest, and they’re desperate to discover better speed, stability and crew solidarity before racing resumes on Bermuda’s Great Sound on Sunday.

But Jones, a five-time Cup winner, doubts Oracle will find the winning formula in time. There is no silver bullet, he says.

“I think we [Team NZ] have been very dominant in just about every aspect of the racing. It’s not that easy to just turn it around. And I’m not expecting that to change in a hurry.”

Jones should have a better idea than most. Over the last four years, the Kiwi America’s Cup legend has played integral roles in both camps.

A wise and accomplished head in the Oracle sailing team in 2013, he helped turn around the fortunes of Oracle as they floundered in the wake of Team NZ’s 72-foot cat on San Francisco Bay.

There was wild speculation at the time of Oracle’s haunting eight-win comeback that their advantage came from a mysterious foiling system dubbed Herbie, magically pulled from CEO Larry Ellison’s gold-lined pockets.

But four years on, Jones reveals “80 percent of the difference” in Oracle’s performance came from the crew suddenly changing the way they tacked, sailed and steered their boat. They finally got the knack of foiling upwind, and refined their technique in a tack.

Now, “The Captain” is coaching Team NZ’s sailing crew, who he reckons will only get better from now until the Cup is claimed – making it even tougher for Oracle to bridge the gap.

“I think both teams can make gains in the way they sail the boat. We have as much potential to improve for this weekend as they have,” Jones says.

“Oracle will be chipping away every day trying to make gains. They know it won’t be all coming in one hit. There is no silver bullet. And they will be thinking: ‘Hopefully we will get close enough to make a race of it, and try and get some points on the board’. I don’t think they will be expecting to come out and be faster than Team NZ just straight off the bat.

“We have dominated in just about every way. [Helmsman] Pete Burling has done a fantastic job in the starts; we are faster upwind and downwind; the guys are tacking better; they have control of the boat in pre-start manoeuvres. And as a result, Oracle have been making the mistakes, and that’s the difference.”

Oracle chose to go sailing on the Great Sound on the second day of this five-day rest from racing, which makes Jones think they’re trying to find the biggest gains from the way they mode or sail their racing machine.

“It was interesting they were out sailing because the other alternative would be staying in the shed for 3-4 days doing some major work,” he says.

While Team NZ was tinkering away on Aotearoa New Zealand in their shed, with the sailing crew pitching in for half a day, they had spies out on the water looking for any changes in Oracle’s cat, 17.

"We have as much potential to improve for this weekend as they have."

While the American boat appeared to have minor alterations to its foils and wing-sail, the most valuable information the Kiwi spies gleaned was watching the different way the Oracle crew sailed the boat.

“They were copying the way we sail our boat, trying to get more in line with what we do,” Jones says. “But I’m not worried about that. Their foils are different, their control systems are different, so it won’t be necessarily easy for them to say ‘Okay, let’s sail like they do’.”

“Our guys have been training to sail like they do for a long time in New Zealand, and are perfecting it here in Bermuda.”

Although Jones has been impressed with the way the young Kiwi crew, skippered by multihull master Glenn Ashby, have performed so far, they still have plenty to refine.

“We’ll go sailing for the next three days, concentrating mainly on our skills and sailing the boat well. It’s where we still have the most potential to improve,” he says.

“It’s so easy working with these young guys - they are really talented sailors who just get it. You don’t have to tell anyone twice; they understand. They’ve also been really involved in the design process all the way through, so they understand the options of modes you can sail the boat in. They also have a good feel for the boat, and are great at analysing the numbers coming off the boat, so they give great feedback to the designers on what could be done better.

“And the best thing is that they are all really enjoying it. They just love going out sailing every day. We don’t have to do anything special at all to motivate them now. [They are] all itching to get back out there and make the boat go faster again.”

When asked what Team NZ would fear most about Oracle for the second half of the match, Jones may not have fully grasped the question. His answer, though, is intriguing.

“Obviously we have to be careful with the boat. We don’t want to get the boat damaged, so we don’t want to be in a situation where the boats get too close together. We will be very aware of that,” he says. “Obviously they have a lot more resources to fix their boat if there’s a collision. That’s what we are aware of.”

Looking ahead to Sunday, or Race Day Three, the weather conditions are again expected to play into Team NZ’s favour – 9-11 knots of stable breeze, as was predicted for Bermuda at this time of year. But Monday could see a little more wind “more than what we have raced in against Oracle before,” Jones says.

“It will be fun to sail against them in a bit more breeze. They will be more competitive. But I’m not concerned about it. I think we are very strong in the light, but we are not worried about sailing in a bit more breeze as well.”