Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa have avoided lightning strikes on the water in Barcelona as the Kiwis lost their second race of the Louis Vuitton Cup overnight.
Team NZ were well off the pace early in the race, with Luna Rossa getting the jump on them from the start line and stayed in front until mother nature had its say on proceedings.
Lightning remarkably struck the water just a few hundred metres away from Luna Rossa who were on the final downwind to the finish line.
Lightning strikes called off racing between Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli (Source: Stuff/Three) (Source: Supplied)
Team New Zealand didn't take any chances and went outside the far boundary to avoid the incoming weather. The Race Committee swiftly called an end to the race and awarded the win to Luna Rossa with Team New Zealand scoring a disqualification for their manoeuvre over the boundary.
The Kiwi boat was already far behind Luna Rossa and can't earn points in the Louis Vuitton Cup.
Skipper Peter Burling said they weren't good enough from the start.
"A bit of a mistake on my behalf, just letting them sit a little bit too far forward, and I didn't think they'd be able to accelerate quite as well as they did, and then we ended up in a really tricky situation once they did get over the top of us."
"Once you blow off a foil and it's not got flow attached to it, everything gets really weird and you end up with strange angles. But all in all we were pretty happy with how we set up in the pre-start, we made them do something and we just weren't able to finish it off, but then we were really happy with the way we were sailing around the racetrack."
Luna Rossa skipper Jimmy Spithill said they put everything into the start and praised the effort of his cyclor team.
"It's just another great race against the Kiwis, we expect nothing less when we're going against those guys and unfortunately for us that'll be the last one for a while but let's see what happens in the rest of the rounds now against the Challengers."
Luna Rossa lead the Louis Vuitton Cup in the second stage of the round robin, with Orient Express Racing Team tied bottom with Alinghi Red Bull Racing with just one win each. The team that finishes bottom at the end of the double round robin races will be eliminated.
Team New Zealand are set to take on INEOS Britannia tonight in their seventh race of the Louis Vuitton Cup.
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