New Zealand have missed out on the Canada SailGP final at Halifax, but somehow still stretched their lead atop the overall series standings, with two more stops on the schedule.
Sitting second behind Great Britain overnight, the Black Foils could not improve their position across two further fleet races, finishing fifth in both to slip back to fifth overall - one point off second, but also one point outside the top three.
"We definitely found it really tricky out there," said driver Peter Burling. "It just wasn’t really our day.
"Going into that last race, we knew we needed a reasonable one to get into the final. We got a great start and were looking in good shape, and then just slipped backwards from there, which was pretty frustrating.
"It would have been an easy weekend for us to get to the final and we felt we were sailing really well yesterday. Today, it felt like we did some really good things, but we had a few absolute shockers to throw in the mix and put us behind."
High winds prevented Switzerland and USA from contesting the final two races.
The British, driven by Giles Scott, continued their dominance to finish on top of the event standings, and then won the final from France and Denmark, but none of the Kiwis' closest rivals fared much better than them.
Defending champions Australia were well off the pace in seventh, after tipping over altogether while leading the fifth race, and lost their second spot on the overall standings to Spain, who were fourth at Halifax.
Entering the event with a 10-point lead, New Zealand are now 11 ahead of the Spanish, with the Aussies another point back.
The next regatta is scheduled for New York on June 22/23, with the series Grand Final at San Francisco on July 13/14.
More to come
