America’s Cup Recon Diary: March 27 – Kiwis chase the breeze
by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World NZ 27 Mar 06:25 PDT
28 March 2026
Emirates Team New Zealand – AC75, Day 7 – March 27, 2026 © Richard Gladwell / Sail-World.com/nz
After two days of fresh onshore winds and gales, Friday dawned with blue skies, little wind, and a remaining seastate. The Kiwis docked out at noon for what was to be a chase around the Hauraki Gulf in search of wind, but ironically, they found the best breeze close to home.
We caught up with them sailing in the Rangitoto Channel in what felt like a bottom-end northerly breeze – more than enough to self-launch, their problem was with dead spots. The ones we could see were caused by the wind splitting around Rangitoto Island, and between the Channel and their favourite training ground, the Paddock – also sheltered to some extent by Waiheke Island, there was a “No-Man’s Land” of calm water.
The Kiwis looked quite good foiling down the edge of Rangitoto, but soon ran out of gas as they got into the lee of the island while trying to sail across to the Paddock.
While we have seen the Kiwis sail almost flawlessly for the past six sessions, it was reassuring to see they were still human when they hit the soft pressure in the lee of Rangitoto and came off their foils.
They had to be towed across the windless hole to reach the Motuihe Channel, where there was a more unobstructed breeze, allowing them to stretch out and sail longer legs instead of the short stints in the Channel breeze. They did multiple windward-leeward legs starting from alongside Browns Island into the northwestern end of WW1 Prisoner of War camp on Motuihe Island, before returning to the Rangitoto Channel (without a tow), and finished the session around 6.00pm with another windward-leeward in the Rangitoto Channel.
More when the Recon Unit report and video arrive.
