The Netherlands and Spanish teams qualified for the semi-finals of the America's Cup event on Tuesday after a dominant performance by Sweden in their group.

The Swedish crew, which has had more time to practice with the AC40 foiling boat than other teams, set the pace in a Mediterranean breeze that was shifting.

Sweden, Australia, Canada, and Germany were all in the same group as Sweden at the end of this eight-race series. The six-boat semifinal scheduled for Friday was the result.

Vilma Böbeck, co-helm of the Swedish team, said: "We are so happy with our performance. I am proud of all the girls. They really gave it their best."

Bobeck stated, "I enjoyed it but you need to stay on your toes because things are changing so quickly."

Canada's high-tech boat, which had suffered a catastrophic nosedive and nearly capsized in the first race on Tuesday, was then unable to compete due to equipment failure.

Isabella Bertold, the co-helm of the Canadian crew after they had safely returned ashore, said that she was "gutted" to not be able show their improvement.

"I'm really impressed with our team for putting the boat down as they did and keeping everything safe," Bertold said of the moment when she said a bolt had sheared and caused a loss of control of the hydraulically-operated foils.

The damage caused also a delay of two days in the other draw, between Britain, France Italy, New Zealand and the United States.

The 12 teams participating in the event shared boats. As a result, Britain was not able to compete on Tuesday as planned due to damage to the AC40 used by Canada.

The organisers moved the fleet race of the group to Thursday in order to give time for repairs, "in the interest of fairness to everyone". (Reporting and editing by Ken Ferris; Alexander Smith)

(source: Reuters)