Emirates Team New Zealand put in one of their worst performances of the 2009 Audi MedCup circuit on Sunday.
Their seventh place in the one and only race of the final day was enough to earn them an overall victory in the Portugal Trophy by just 1.5 points from Torbjorn Tornqvist's Artemis.
Having spent Saturday on the dockside waiting in vain for the wind to build, the TP52 fleet were faced with a streaky 5-9 knots of sea breeze mixed with some north westerly gradient wind, which made for some challenging conditions.
Artemis were at the top of the leaderboard going into the final race but without their tactician Paul Cayard, they struggled to recover from a poor start and allowed Dean Barker's Kiwi crew to steal a march to finish three places ahead of them which gave them a 1.5 point lead overall.
It was their third consecutive win in three regattas and gives them a 52 point lead overall heading to the final regatta of the season next month in Carthagena, Murcia Spain. Matador lies in second and American boat Quantum Racing, featuring British sailor Ian Moore as navigator in third.
Emirates Team New Zealand CEO and mast-man Grant Dalton said: "We are relieved. It was a pretty tough regatta. I think we identified as soon as we got here, that this was going to be tough, and I think we also identified Artemis as the boat which could beat us. And it felt that all the way. So we are just pleased to have got through another one really."
"It's a big lead now, but we know what can happen, you can still sail badly, it changes pretty quickly. There are always improvements to be made and we made plenty of mistakes in this regatta."
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