Two days after a frightening capsize that threatened their challenge, New Zealand won two out of three races on Thursday to reach the challenger final and extinguish four-time Olympic champion Ainslie's hopes of bringing the coveted Cup to Britain.
Nathan Outteridge's slip off the back of the Swedish boat was another reminder for Team New Zealand that disaster lurks at every corner when racing these foiling America's Cup catamarans.
June 9 Sweden's Artemis Racing secured an America's Cup Challenger showdown against Emirates Team New Zealand by knocking out Softbank Team Japan in their semi-final on Friday.
The victor of this series moves on to face two-time defending champion Oracle Team USA in the 35th America's Cup match starting next Saturday. "We knew we had the power and had to keep chipping away, we saw the opportunity and stole the victory", Outteridge said in televised comments on BT Sport.
Three were thrown overboard but all of New Zealand's crew were accounted for. I think all four teams out there showed great seamanship to deal with these boats in these conditions.
"It didn't go all our way in that race either, we had our own battles, but really happy to take it through to the next round", he said.
The final race against Artemis Racing today had SoftBank Team Japan fans glued to the screen all around the world as the team trailed going in 3-4 thru the first-to-five series.
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Land Rover and 11th Hour Racing have both confirmed their commitment to continue their partnerships with the team and Land Rover BAR skipper and team principal Sir Ben Ainslie believes his team will come back stronger for the next America's Cup competition.
The New Zealand boat rose on its hydrofoils rapidly just before the start and lost control, its bows plunging into the water before the boat flipped sideways, its massive fixed wing sail in the water.
One supporter who has set Land Rover BAR apart is Britain's Duchess of Cambridge, Catherine, who has sailed with Ainslie and is patron of the 1851 Trust, the charity he has set up to get young people to discover science and technology through sailing. Outteridge and Iain Jensen, an Artemis crewman, won the gold medal in the 49er class in the 2012 Olympics, with Burling and Blair Tuke, also a Team New Zealand crewman, taking the silver. Artemis chose to remain in the 34th America's Cup, although it missed much of the challenger trials in the 2 1/2 months it took to ready its new boat.
In the next race Ainslie again led at the start and as Emirates Team New Zealand powered up, disaster struck.
"Today's race was a bit frustrating", said Barker.
The delay gave the Kiwis, the hard-luck losers in the 2013 America's Cup, another day to fix their boat.
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