America's Cup: Alinghi on brink of successful defence

A crushing defeat for the challenger, Team New Zealand, in the sixth race of the America's Cup yesterday put the holder, Switzerland's Alinghi, on match point. From 1-2 down they lead the series 4-2, and need just one more win in the best-of-nine contest to keep the 156-year-old trophy.

The Kiwis have one last chance today to grab back a prize ripped away in Auckland four years ago and which has again been slipping through a grasp that just has not been iron-fisted enough over the past 48 hours.

This was the second consecutive race where the Kiwis had taken the lead, with skipper Dean Barker leading off to the left on the first 3.3-mile leg in 7-10-knot winds, only to see it taken away from them. In race five, a normally well-drilled crewing machine contrived the mother and father of all spinnaker foul-ups, leaving the team boss and general dogsbody Grant Dalton, who celebrates his 50th birthday today, to try to talk them back into the game. "This is a team that hangs tough," he said.

The tough problem, though, is a team that also beats with a Kiwi heart, and it was their confidence and patience that delivered the goods on the second upwind leg after skipper and tactician Brad Butterworth chose the right-hand side of the race course, reassured by another Kiwi, Murray Jones. Butterworth admitted there was also an element of luck on a track where having a better supply of wind is more important than a marginally faster boat.

It took some time, whittling away at a TNZ lead that had been a far from comfortable 11 seconds until everything was in place: the extra puff of wind strength, the extra lift in direction and the right time to attack.

Barker could do nothing as Alinghi rolled over the top of him to take control, round the next mark with a 16-second advantage, and gradually stretch that to a finish-line 28 seconds having shaken off a last lunge as the runway ran out for TNZ.

"We are as positive as we can be," said Barker afterwards. "It's always hard losing races but we are a very dangerous team and good enough to get back into it. It's a big ask, but while we've got a chance we're there."

Last night the hordes of NZ supporters were clinging to any hope of recovery, including the memory that Australia II was on match point and two races adrift before going on to win three straight and beat Liberty off Newport, Rhode Island in 1983 and bring a 132-year winning streak to an end.