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Phil-540i

How bout we lean 'further / harder'......

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If you Aucklanders wanna host the new boat race, might be a great idea on leaning a bit harder before the next one starts in a few minutes.......

Come on Kiwis!! You can do it!!!! Those Yanks are gonna be just a little bit tooooo smug, (& we'll never hear the end of it!!!) if they take the win on this..........

Bring it home Dean & crew.............

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I wonder if one in a million Americans even realize there is a boat race on?

I think we invest way to much financially and emotionally in our sports in NZ, its pathetic.

How about we invest the 50 million tax payer dollars this sh*t cost in other things that are a lot less bourgeois?

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I'm inclined to agree with what you're saying there Graham........but I'm not really a big sports fan at the best of times probably.

On the boating here, I only know 2 things really.......

- Team Oracle are just running circles around the Kiwi boat now, & in my opinion, they deserve to win it really given from how far behind they have come...

- I hate the Chris Dickson analysis.

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We might as well accept defeat. Larry Ellison's not going to let go of the penalty decision now, whether we win tomorrow or not. We've spent enough cash on the boat already, we better not start lining the pockets of a bunch of lawyers too.

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I understand the reason why the NZ government "invests" $58m in the sport. If we win, the tourism comes here for the next year etc.

I have a much quicker solution.

Why dont they put $58m on Black at the Roulette wheel at SkyCity, and see if we win or loose that instead

The whole thing is a joke really, especially on what is essentially a big gamble.

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I wonder if one in a million Americans even realize there is a boat race on?

I think we invest way to much financially and emotionally in our sports in NZ, its pathetic.

How about we invest the 50 million tax payer dollars this sh*t cost in other things that are a lot less bourgeois?

I was there a few weeks back. Nobody knows its on. Nobody has heard of it.

Staying in San Francisco we were asked by a few people who found we were from NZ if we were here to watch some boat racing other NZers had told them about.

Logic says Oracle will win. Emotion hopes they do not. The money would do good for Auckland.

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How much have the kiwi's been paid off to loss it =D

Almost looked that way in this morning's racing tbh!

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I understand the reason why the NZ government "invests" $58m in the sport. If we win, the tourism comes here for the next year etc.

I have a much quicker solution.

Why dont they put $58m on Black at the Roulette wheel at SkyCity, and see if we win or loose that instead

The whole thing is a joke really, especially on what is essentially a big gamble.

I can think of far worse uses of taxpayer $. At least this is supporting an entire industry (whether we win the cup or not) and helping to push NZ's technical capabilities.

A guy I live with is a builder. He is on a job where HNZ tenants pulled up the floorboards in the kitchen for an indoor hangi. Happens all the time he reckons. Tenants trashing houses only to be repaired and destroyed again in a couple of months. Tax payer wears it everytime.

But I see what you're saying. Some people aren't into yachting.. fair enough. For those of us that are its worth a few bucks... win or lose

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An indoor hangi???!!! Never heard of that till now - I must lead a sheltered life!!

Mate you havent lived!

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Mate you havent lived!

Lols - hmm, maybe I need to stick my hand up for a State house then, so I can have the full experience.....not!!!

Re the boats, I think the Americans 'deserve' the win really, in having came back from where they were sitting. Irrespective of the money, talent, skills, & personalities involved, attitude while under pressure also plays a big part. Love him, or hate him, hearing Jimmy Spittle say "We want this" is inspirational, & sorta shows what he is like as a leader, & what his expectations are of himself, & those he is leading.

Dean Barker tends to say "We can do it" - yes, we / they can - I have no doubt on that. However, to achieve it, you also need the desire as well, & personally, I think that's the difference we are facing now.

There's an old (Southland??) saying, that mutters something about "Its not the size of the dog in the fight, its the size of the fight in the dog" that counts........

"We can do it" - but will we........

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Well you could argue that "we can do it" exudes some kind of confidence or ability, where-as "we want this" is just desire to do so.

Either way they're just words.

We'll see in the morning who are the better team, winner takes all.

Re: the 50 Million...If we hadn't spent the money on ETNZ, do you think there'd be a dramatic difference in our lives anyway? No.

Personally I'd rather see where our money goes rather than have it dissapear into a black hole.

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^^^^^ agreed Jeevan!! However, Team NZ were doing something manually, that the yanks were using a computer to do, & short of gear failure or a computer hiccup by Oracle, it was stacked against us really.....they had the faster boat, thus they won. Same as any race - consistently fastest, will win.

Edited by Blue-540i

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Re: the 50 Million...If we hadn't spent the money on ETNZ, do you think there'd be a dramatic difference in our lives anyway? No.

Personally I'd rather see where our money goes rather than have it dissapear into a black hole.

I think the idea of inspiring young people into a sport is a good one, before this Americas Cup many young kiwis would have never thought of Yachting, now they may be considering having a go. How can getting young kids outside and off the couch be a bad thing?

I agree that it's a big sum, but the way it's inspired the nation is big. I work retail and every second customer mentioned something about it, it has certainly stirred some interest. More exciting than Rugby IMO, and don't we pour millions into that?

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fair enough. Attended a Rapid manufacturing seminar by the IPENZ a few months ago, and we saw the knives and titanium equipment meant for the americas cup boats made using laser sintering, from CAD to implementation in just 8 hours. it was amazing, and the butterfly knife was just 2 grams in weight. nearly half the equipment on the boats was done with NZ manufacturing and tech (which has applications everywhere else)

So i guess the spill over effect to the tech side is more significant (and more relevant to engineers like myself) in the long run.

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Definitely good for the boat building and tech industry in NZ - would be interesting to see the ROI for the $58M or whatever government invested. Shame the cup's not going to be here - that would have raked in the $$$s. It p*sses people off because it's a minority (and exclusive) sport, irrespective of how much money the investment has actually made. Doesn't bother me too much, but it does bother how so many people who were loving the success when we were leading seem to have turned on ETNZ since their run of losses began. It's not their fault, Ellison's got more money and built a faster boat.

It's a pretty cool sport IMO but the cup racing would benefit hugely from some handicaps. Put them all in identical boats that don't cost more than $4-5M and we'd have more challengers and way more exciting racing. It's just like Formula 1 - it gets boring when one manufacturer's car is light years ahead of the others. A level playing field will stop the Larry Ellisons of the world buying victories. Victories are far more satisfying when won on the merit of the competitors not the equipment.

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A level playing field will stop the Larry Ellisons of the world buying victories. Victories are far more satisfying when won on the merit of the competitors not the equipment.

Agree, totally. That's why I got out of the motorsport I was involved in years ago, as it became very much who had the biggest cheque book won, rather than based on skill......Some of the guys were spending crazy amounts of money, which at a 'normal or middle-class' level, can'nt be equalled. Was a bit of self satisfaction on beating stuff that was 'bigger & better' at times though......

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