Team NZ Win Trophy

Emirates Team New Zealand has beaten Italy’s Mascalzone Latino Audi on Waitemata Harbour in Auckland by 56 seconds to secure a 2–0 win in the best-of-three final of the Louis Vuitton Trophy. Faultless crew work on the last downwind leg helped the New Zealand team stretch their lead further by the finish. “It was a bloody hard race,” New Zealand skipper Dean Barker said. “It’s always satisfying when you feel you’ve saved your best till the last day, and today we did that.” Team New Zealand lost only two of 13 races at the regatta, to Aleph of France in the first round-robin and to Azzurra of Italy in the best-of-three semi-final. The Louis Vuitton regatta provides racing for America’s Cup teams locked out of the latest Cup regatta between the American syndicate Oracle and Switzerland’s Alinghi. The next Louis Vuitton Trophy regatta will be sailed off La Maddalena, Sardinia, from May 22 to June 6.