First Challenger finals

Artemis Racing and Emirates Team New Zealand met on Saturday in the first of nine races to see which team will face Oracle Team USA in 35th America’s Cup Final.

It was a close match until the final race, when Nathan Outteridge, Artemis helmsman, fell off the boat during a tack, allowing ETNZ an easy third win of the day.

ETNZ helmsman PeterBurling said: “We’re really happy with how we were going today. It was an incredibly tricky day for the forecasters. I don’t thing anyone expected it to be that light in the first race, or that heavy in the last two.

“But we were happy with how our boat went across the range. We obviously struggled a little bit with the starts, but there were some really hard fought battles and we’re obviously learning a lot as we go.”

Talking about Race 3, which saw Artemis well ahead of ETNZ, Burling admitted: “We were quite happy to fight our way back into that last race before ‘Nath’ went off. It was shaping up to be a real close top mark and we just battled our way back in.

“We figured out why Artemis had slowed down when we passed him on the run down…”

Outteridge said: “Our weather team did a really good job today. They called it was going to be a bit light winds at times, so we went with the light wind configuration with the dagger boards.

“We definitely had the right set up for that first race,” he said. “Unfortunately we just didn’t sail very well. We mispositioned a tack and weren’t manoeuvring very well and that’s what cost us that race.”

Her went on to say: “And in the other two races it surprised us as it did build to get a little bit stronger than we’d hoped for. But it was really impressive how our boat performed in those conditions.”

Outteridge countered, saying: “We were a little bit out of range and Team New Zealand was more in range, but we felt really strong against them.

“Had I not fallen off in that last race, it would have been 2-1 so a bit disappointed,” Outteridge said ruefully. “But very happy with the overall performance today.”