New Zealand up 4-0 on Britannia in America's Cup and needs 3 more wins to retain title

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Emirates Team New Zealand is halfway to retaining the America’s Cup after going up 4-0 on INEOS Britannia in the finals on Monday.

The cup will go to the first yacht to reach seven wins.

New Zealand's Taihoro made it four from four off the Barcelona beachfront after beating Britannia by 23 seconds. The yachts exchanged leads in the first leg then the Kiwis made steady gains and were more than 350 meters in front when they crossed the finish line.

“It’s nice just to keep marching forward,” low-key New Zealand skipper Peter Burling said.

Burling's curbing of any enthusiasm likely comes from his team's scalding at the 2013 America's Cup, where it was up 8-1 but collapsed and lost 9-8 to Oracle Team USA in San Francisco bay.

The team led by Grant Dalton rebounded from that with cup victories in 2017 and 2021 and are on course to become the first syndicate to triumph three times on the trot.

And, ominously for Britannia, Burling said his team still has room to improve.

“(There's) a long way to go. I don’t think any team knows it better than us,” Burling said. “We obviously have a lot of things to work on as well. It feels like we haven’t really sailed to our potential yet.”

The British admitted to frustration as their quest to win the America's Cup for the first time in the race's 173-year history fades.

“There is a lot of frustration on the team. Where we are right now is not where we want to be,” Britannia trimmer Bleddyn Mon said. “But there is a lot of drive on the team, and everyone here knew it was going to be a real battle against the Kiwis."

The challenger will have Tuesday to plot a fightback before sailing resumes on Wednesday with match races five and six.

“It is a good opportunity to take a day on shore and try to figure out how we can find some gains,” Britannia skipper Ben Ainslie said. “They are clearly going really well. We have our moments, but still there are moments where we are losing a click and I think that is the difference."

Britannia impressed in the challenger series when it made huge gains in speed and beat four rivals from Italy, United States, Switzerland and France. It counts on the design and engineering prowess of its partnership with the Mercedes Formula 1 team.

But the Kiwis, with their in-house design team, have a clear edge.

Burling’s crew have executed flawlessly while also sailing aggressively. After nailing Britannia with a pre-start penalty when the two 75-foot foiling boats almost crashed on Sunday, the Taihoro and Britannia made several close crosses in race four.

Ainslie’s boat started well enough by pinning Taihoro to the port boundary, but once the latter got away and found more wind on the other side of the race track it was able to cruise away.

New Zealand may be leveraging one of its advantages. While Britannia had to make a boat that could sail from late summer until now, the Kiwis were able to concentrate all their efforts on getting a boat ready just for one week in the cooler weather of mid-October.

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