Sailing-Britain rally with second America's Cup race win over New Zealand

BARCELONA :Britain won a second race in their head-to-head America's Cup final against New Zealand on Wednesday, reducing the holders' lead to 4-2 in the first-to-seven points series in testing sea conditions off Barcelona.

The British crew skippered by Ben Ainslie outmanoeuvred the New Zealand crew led by Peter Burling in the final seconds of the pre-start and shot across the line in their foiling AC75 to establish an early lead in the day's second race.

"Solid effort from the team today, that was for everyone," Ainslie said on the live America's Cup broadcast as his crew celebrated.

"Still a long way to go, but the comeback is on ... every day we are getting better at sailing this boat".

Britain led around the first mark and were able to stay ahead in all of the eight legs, hitting speeds of more than 35 knots as they navigated a churned-up sea, holding off a late New Zealand challenge for the win.

"We really needed to get those two wins on the board," Ainslie's co-helm Dylan Fletcher said.

Ainslie and his crew were also able to get the better of the New Zealand team skippered by Peter Burling at the start of the first race as the Kiwis came off their foils, while the British stayed up and foiling.

"We always knew this was going to be a fight, awesome to have a battle on our hands now," New Zealand's Burling said, admitting he was disappointed by a couple of errors on board.

SAILED CLEANLY

Britain crossed the start line to leave New Zealand in their wake and disappeared up the course. By the time New Zealand were able to get back on their foils Ainslie's crew just needed to make sure they sailed cleanly to capitalise on the advantage.

Ainslie's crew kept their cool to notch up their first morale-boosting victory in a long quest