America's Cup- Emirates Team New Zealand update - unlucky race 13

by Warren Douglas on 21 Sep 2013
'Sometimes things go your way.' Dean Barker talking after racing on day 10 of the America’s Cup match.

And sometimes they don’t. Once again a race in the 34th America's Cup match has been abandoned with Emirates Team New Zealand in the lead.

Two races have been postponed because there was too much wind. Today, the 10th day of racing in San Francisco, race 13 was abandoned because there was too little wind and the yachts did not finish in the mandated 40 minutes.

As Barker said: 'Any one of those points would be good to have.'

NZL5 was 1500 metres ahead of Oracle when the call pulling the pin on the race came from the committee boat. NZL5 was headed towards the final turning mark. It would have been a certain win for Barker and crew and the would have given the team the one point it needed to win the America’s Cup.

It was never going to be an easy day. The breeze fluctuated from 7-12 knots during race time, but was fluky and shifted 70-80 degrees during the re-sail.

The re-sail followed. Again the breeze was light, but a little stronger than before. Barker won the start, but an indifferent second half of downwind leg by NZL5 and a big windshift on the fourth leg that favoured Oracle, closed down Barker’s options.

Barker had no complaints about the time limit. 'It would have been nice to have another 10 minutes ....but it's there for a purpose - television schedules - and we can live with that.

'We became aware half-way down the run that we were not going to make the finish in time. We had put a lot into the race. We were so close - and so far away but cry or laugh we just have to get on with it.

'Now we have to make sure we're on our game tomorrow.'