Ultimately I would have to say that the 31st America's Cup Match was a bit of a disappointment.

The Swiss challenger, Alinghi, crewed by a multi-national team, proved to be far superior to Team New Zealand beating them in five straight races to win the best of nine series. I think that many of us had hoped for a closer match. I think that most people in and around the sailing world wanted to see the cup move to Europe but I also think that most would have rather seen TNZ go down fighting rather submit meekly as they did. With two DNF's in the five races sailed that left only three races to be contested. Of those only one, race two was anything to write home about as match racing goes with some close sailing and several lead changes. Races three and five saw Alinghi comfortably winning the start and then dominating from there onwards. In yesterday's fifth and final race the pattern was the same with Alinghi leading off the line and TNZ playing catch-up, something that they did quite well throughout the regatta, until they lost further ground through a spinnaker pole breakage.

In the final analysis it will have to be said that equipment failure really was the thing that let TNZ down the most. It seemed to have a knock-on effect, downing their confidence and their performance. In the post race press conference skipper Dean Barker suggested that he was happy with the boat that they had produced but given it's terrible reliability problems it is hard to see how though could be completely true. Whatever the shortcomings of the campaign though, it's all over now.

Next on the agenda is to see what plans Alinghi have for their defence of the trophy. Speculation is rife as to where and when they will defend but it seems that 2007 is the most likely year, since it follows on after the 2006 Soccer World Cup. Several Mediterranean venues are being touted with Caiscais in Portugal seeming to be the favourite. The future direction of the cup will be revealed on Tuesday afternoon when Alinghi hold a press conference in Auckland to reveal their plans.

Until then, why not take a surf past the winners web site at www.alinghi.com.