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Hamilton, Bermuda (Reuters): New Zealand lifted the America’s Cup on Monday, almost white-washing the US holders with a revolutionary boat and a new superstar sailor avenging a humbling defeat four years ago.
Emirates Team New Zealand claimed international sport’s oldest trophy with a stunning 7-1 victory in Bermuda’s Great Sound, with 26-year-old Peter Burling becoming the youngest helmsman to secure sailing’s biggest prize.
In doing so, Burling usurped New Zealand’s nemesis, Oracle Team USA skipper Jimmy Spithill, who won the cup in 2010 aged 30 and was hoping for a third successive victory.
Larry Ellison, the billionaire Oracle founder, dressed in Oracle Team USA kit, came ashore from his boat to greet both teams after a fascinating battle of wills and technology.
But the focus was on Olympic champion Burling, who showered his jubilant team mates and support crew with champagne after their sleek black, red and white catamaran crossed the line.
“We’re all ecstatic about what we have managed to achieve and we are on top of the world, it’s going to be a good night,” Burling said after coolly steering his space-age 50-foot (15 metre) foiling catamaran to yet another win over Spithill.
“They really were a class above in this America’s Cup... They outsailed us and had a better boat... really well done,” Spithill said, later adding that there were many things his team would have done differently.
Spithill, one of the world’s most successful sailors, said it was too soon to say what he or the U.S. team would do next.
The America’s Cup, named after the schooner “America” which won it off the south coast of England in 1851, has only been held by teams from the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Switzerland.
New Zealand won the right to take on the U.S. by beating four other “challengers” from Britain, France, Japan and Sweden, using cycling sailors dubbed “cyclors” to provide pedal power to control their catamaran’s vast “wing” sail and hydrofoils.
The Kiwis will now decide where, when and in what type of boat the next America’s Cup will be held and there have been questions over whether they will opt for high-octane catamarans, or revert to the monohulls used in previous cups.
