Sailing

Team NZ to face Artemis in final

Resilience: the ability to recover from adversity or misfortune; the power to return to the original form after being bent.

Emirates Team New Zealand utterly fit the dictionary definition. Resilience, it is now clear, is a virtue they have in spades. They also have in their favour speed, confidence and, because of all three, a place in the Louis Vuitton challenger final.

This morning Dean Barker's Japan team, who had surged to a 3-1 lead in the other semifinal, finally gave up its lead over Artemis to go out of the Cup.

It means Artemis will be the latest team to meet Team NZ in the challenger event they have made their own.

The tradition which began in Fremantle, 1987, continues. Whenever Team NZ has sailed in an America’s Cup, they have always at least made the final of the challenger play-offs.

This time, though, it was under the most testing of circumstances. Just 48 hours earlier, the Kiwi campaign was turned upside down on the Great Sound; 24 hours later, they were – amazingly –ready to race again, although they knew their reconstructed boat wasn’t 100 percent match fit. Then the wind gods blew in their favour, blessing them with another day to recover.

Today the incredible Kiwi resilience that helmsman Peter Burling spoke of, after being rescued from the cockpit of his crashed catamaran, was palpable.

In the morning, the team gently lowered a boat into the water that barely resembled the shattered, tangled mess pulled out of the Great Sound two days before.

Their inspiring comeback was the outcome of virtually everyone in the 90-strong team pitching in to help, in a round-the-clock marathon inside the Team NZ tent. People like the team’s physiotherapist, Paul Wilson, who suddenly found himself on the end of a grinder.

There was the resilience of the boat’s crew, unquestionably bruised and shaken by the calamitous capsize, who returned to the water for three taxing races, against a British BAR team who were growing in confidence.

And then there was Burling, at 26 the youngest and least match-race proficient of all the helmsman in the fleet, back behind the wheel - driving with the composure and conviction of a seasoned pro.

When the boat stuttered in the start-box of today’s first race – when Burling couldn’t activate the button at his feet to make the port daggerboard slip down into the water – he did not panic. Left straggling behind the Brits by almost half a minute at the start-line, Burling exhorted his team to dig deep. Even though they were wary of looking after their still-tender boat, they calmly clawed back the deficit, showing superior boatspeed and dexterity on their foils, to win by half a minute.

Simply out-sailed by Sir Ben Ainslie in the second race, but still holding a 4-2 lead, the New Zealanders left it to the last race of the day to “let loose” and give the most clinical display of tactics, speed and cat-wrangling. They led from start to finish, to clinch the final victory needed to progress to Sunday’s best-of-nine final.

Repeatedly, Burling paid kudos to his shore crew and their relentless efforts to have the boat at 99 percent capacity today. Not only did they have it repaired in just under 48 hours, they took the opportunity to make some improvements too.

While their final opponent won’t be known until tomorrow (with the Swedish Artemis needing one more win, and Dean Barker’s Team Japan needing two), Team NZ will watch it play out with fascination. They will also take the time to polish off the small details on their mended boat – and rid any lurking gremlins – before entering the next battle.

“It’s a little road on our way to our end goal,” Burling said back on shore. “We are here to win this next series and try to bring the Cup back to New Zealand.”

Burling thanked Sir Ben and his team for staging a decent fight, and putting Team NZ in “a much better mindset going into the next stage”.

Ainslie – bitterly disappointed that his well-heeled team were eliminated, and yet gracious in defeat – gave his victors credit where it was obviously due.

“They’ve really been very aggressive with their design - from the cyclors to the daggerboard design, how they’ve set up their boat, the trim of their boat. Hats off to Team New Zealand and Kiwi ingenuity,” he said.

Although he gave a nod to Artemis – and his “good friend” and fellow Brit Iain Percy – who scored three vital wins today, it was obvious he was predicting another Team NZ-Oracle showdown in the America’s Cup match. While Ainslie gave them “a very good chance” of winning the Auld Mug, he then made it quite clear that his money was on his old team Oracle to take out sailing’s holy grail for a third time running.

Neither Burling nor his skipper Glenn Ashby could be drawn to say who they would prefer to sail in Sunday’s final. Artemis, the pre-regatta favourites to be Cup challenger, will be dangerous if they continue on their latest stretch of improvement, but will offer the kind of tough competition Team NZ would need before meeting the defender again. The Japanese, of course, have a boat that is supposedly a carbon copy of Oracle’s, which would give the Kiwis a little more insight into how the defender ticks.

In another Team New Zealand tradition, there was no celebration for making it this far. Team NZ returned to the dock and quietly acknowledged their cheering crowd of supporters, which builds in number by the day. Burling’s father Richard waved the largest New Zealand flag.

Then it was “one beer each, and home to bed”, to recover from the longest, toughest 48 hours many of them have ever known.