For the last 20 years until today racing for the America's Cup has 
been a very one sided affair. A band of challengers compete for the 
right to take on the incumbent and then the eventual Cup Winner 
thrashes the other yacht to death 5:0. The only exception in 20 years 
was a single penultimate win by the Italians a few iterations back. ie 
4-0, 4-1, 5-1. 4-1 is the best any underdog has managed in 20 years.

Up until today

Just watched (Emirates) Team NZ Americas's Cup team win the second 
race in the best-of-9 America's Cup series in Valencia, Spain. NZ's 
antipodes fwiw as per recent conversation here. (Spain, Portugal and 
part of the far outer Bay of Biscay). 2:30am race ending here :-(.

A great feeling of vicarious involvement for a large number of late 
awake Kiwis here. There's a certain amount of "grudge match" happening 
here, but nobody in the NZ team is admitting it.

With the score now 1-1 it now appears the two teams and yachts are 
very very closely matched and some nail biting racing now looks likely 
in the coming days.



        Russell


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