Six straight wins have put New Zealand firmly into title contention at the Team Racing World Championship in Stockholm, including victories over both American teams that had dominated opening day.
Racing on Riddarfjärden has been relentless. Thursday produced 55 races, Friday another 42, before a wind shift and fading breeze ended the session ahead of the evening dinner. Lighter conditions on the second day, 3-5 m/s, stayed stable enough for uninterrupted racing through most of the afternoon.
The Kiwi squad, Jordan Stevenson, Mason Mulcahy, Rebecca Morgan, Zoe Dawson, Frankie Dair, George Angus, Luis Schneider and Maeve White, arrived having finished second at last year's Worlds in the US and trained in Denmark to get time in J/80s. That preparation is showing.
Their six-race winning streak included something no other team had managed: defeating both USA 1 and USA 2. The win over USA 1 was that team's first loss of the Championship.
"It was our first loss. I can't really explain what happened. The races are so close and so fast," said USA 1 skipper Alex Curtiss. His team are racing together at a World Championship for the first time, though many of the sailors carry years of shared experience. Curtiss has been struck by how the two-versus-two format has reshaped the sport. "The level is extremely high. When team racing started moving towards two versus two, instead of the three versus three that was more common before, team racing became much more of a global sport, with many strong teams from different nations."
Race 58, New Zealand against USA 2, was the day's standout. What normally runs eight to nine minutes stretched past 14 as the teams traded moves through a succession of tactical exchanges, a subsequent race running in the same water alongside them. New Zealand took it right on the finish line, the first team to defeat an American side at this Championship.
Stevenson is comfortable in the lighter air that has prevailed this week. "I prefer lighter winds. You have a little more time to think about what you're going to do." On Denmark's role in their preparation, he was cheerfully ominous: "We learned a lot about the J/80s. Watch out for Denmark!"
Elsewhere, Australia finally got on the board.
The youngest team in the Championship, averaging just 21, they had a rough opening day and by their own admission made some "silly mistakes", including missing course boundaries. Friday brought clear improvement, and in Race 64 against Japan, also winless at that point, it clicked. Australia built a solid start, made the decisive move downwind, and converted a 1-2 finish while Japan collected penalties for a tack infringement and a late windward breach.
"It was really exciting to get into the groove of it. We felt like we'd made some really big improvements over the last 24 hours," said Australian skipper James Jackson. The priority now is momentum. "We just want to keep improving and keep the team morale high. They're really long days on the water, so we're trying to keep the energy levels up and, most importantly, keep enjoying it."
Japan also ended their winless run on Friday. The breakthrough arrived, coincidentally, just as the Japanese Ambassador reached the venue, though whether anyone on the race committee noticed is another matter. Skipper Houmi Sato had pointed to the narrow starting lines as the team's primary challenge going into the day, and that first win will count for plenty.
Thirty-five races remain in Round Robin 2, with Race 73 scheduled to open Saturday morning. The US teams still sit at the top, but New Zealand have shown they can beat them. The Championship runs through Sunday 16 August.
