The America's Cup «» has always been about competition. Spectators guessed which team would be the fastest this time. The winner was not known until the final, and this kept all participants and observers in suspense.
«But this year's 35th America's Cup» will be predictable and therefore uninteresting, writes NZ Herald correspondent Dana Johansson, and the culprit for this is none other than the current Cup winner.
Those changes allow teams to run practice races against each other on ACC catamarans on specific dates during the 23 days prior to the official America's Cup races. Schedule «windows», on which practice heats are permitted: March 22-26, April 6-7, April 10-12, May 15-19, May 22-23, May 25-June 12. The first practice duel, between Oracle Team USA and Ben Ainslie Racing, has already taken place.
The Kiwi base in Bermuda is now just under construction. The team is training in Auckland and is not scheduled to arrive in Bermuda until early next month. That means Team New Zealand will inevitably miss the first training windows, which gives some advantage to its rivals who have been training in Bermuda for a long time.
«Are the America's Cup racing boats already lined up on the start line? Up until this week it was banned by the protocol, but now it's allowed after another rule change»," according to a post on Team New Zealand's official Facebook page.
Team New Zealand manager Grant Dalton previously described Team «as the lone wolf of the» America's Cup «» . « The danger of being the lone wolf is that at this stage too many people - not just Oracle Team USA - don't want us to win»," he said.
Emirates Team New Zealand launched its revolutionary ACC catamaran with foot-powered winches in mid-February.
