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Emirates Team New Zealand CEO Grant Dalton - Source: Photosport -
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Team New Zealand Chief Executive Grant Dalton has let rip at Alinghi after they failed to defend the America's Cup in Valencia.
Team BMW Oracle clinched the best-of-three series 2-0 in emphatic style on Monday and Dalton thinks that the Swiss team, with several Kiwi sailors on board, left a lot to be desired.
Listen to the full Grant Dalton interview
"I think Alinghi sailed particularly badly... They made some pretty bad calls," Dalton told ONE News.
"I mean they muffed up two starts, two fundamental mistakes that you learn in the squadron of the youth programme, so that really put them on the back foot straight away and they didn't have the speed as well.
"So when you sail badly and you're not fast enough you're not giving yourself any chance."
Dalton also says that he thinks the sailors on Alinghi should probably think about calling it a day.
"I think it's time for a few New Zealand yachtsmen to retire.
"(But) who knows what Alinghi is going to do. Their egos are such that they might not be able to let (the defeat) go and come back - and that's probably a good thing."
Dalton, however, is optimistic about the future now for Team New Zealand.
After four years of bitter dispute between the American and Swiss syndicates he believes his team is still in relatively good shape.
"We have been thinking ahead since the day this whole debacle started with the help of our sponsors and a couple of private individuals by staying together and competing in other regattas.
"We never stopped thinking ahead. It was always going to end one day and (during) the dark hours of just before dawn and the dark hours of trying to keep the place funded, we've made it.
"In fact you could argue that last year was one of Emirates Team New Zealand's best years. We won pretty much everything we went into so absolutely, our whole purpose of being was to stay together and we wait with anticipation on what the future holds in term of venue and timing."
While Dalton has little control of those aspects, he is adamant that the next edition of the America's Cup won't be raced in the huge multi-hull boats that we saw this time around.
"No, they won't stay in anything like those boats. Although they're good from a technological point of view, they're a complete waste of time for match racing because they just go at different speeds.
"So you will see a return of what is normal in America's Cup. I would say high-performance mono-hulls is probably what we're going to and that's perfect for us."
