BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Emirates Team New Zealand got off to a bungled start of its America's Cup trophy defense Thursday when its yacht was damaged after a mishap with the crane removing it from the water after the sailing event's opening races. The 75-foot “Taihoro” monohull won't be fit to sail on Friday and maybe for several days to come, the team said, after it took a hard hit when it fell some six meters (20 feet) and “landed heavily” on its cradle supports at the team's base in Barcelona's old port. New Zealand said that no crew members were hurt but that it would need to assess the damage.
“It’s certainly going to put us out for quite a while,” team CEO Grant Dalton said. "I was in my office and heard it. It sounded like a bomb went off.
It will probably put us out for the round robins. Maybe we get back before the end of them, maybe not. Until we assess it properly we just don’t know.
” Fortunately for the Kiwis, their races in the opening round-robin phase over the next two weeks don’t count. Dalton’s team will then have a bye over the the following two rounds. The real racing for New Zealand begins in six weeks, when they will face the best of five challengers who survive the knockout rounds.
Dalton and skipper Peter Burling, along with other team members, inspected the ship after it was raised up by a crane and gently secured in the cradle's frame. They gave a specially long look at the starboard hydrofoil that was resting on the concrete gr.