For Ben Ainslie, who was tactician for Oracle Team USA at the last America's Cup, his BAR campaign and all the British pounds that was pumped into their team's hopes of finally claiming the Auld Mug since losing it to America in 1851 have come to naught.
Emirates Team New Zealand won two of yesterday's three races to complete a 5-2 victory over Land Rover BAR on the Great Sound in Bermuda in the semi-finals of the Louis Vuitton America's Cup Challenger play-offs.
But Ainslie made a mistake during the prestart of the next race and Burling calmly steered the Kiwis to a wire-to-wire win of 46 seconds.
The Kiwis then saluted the British crew.
In the other semi-final, SoftBank Team Japan lead Sweden's Artemis Racing 3-1 ahead of their two races on Thursday.
Helmsman Peter Burling thanked his shore team for getting the New Zealand catamaran back to racing condition after it "pitch-poled" in a semi-final race against Ainslie on Tuesday, damaging the hulls and shredding their towering "wing" sail.
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Repairs appear to have the boat functioning well, with excellent speed and control a feature of their fight to overhaul a 26-second deficit at the start line.
"We knew it was going to be incredibly tough at the first attempt", Ainslie said.
Burling said the team were still assessing the damage - and the precise cause of the mishap. But Ben and the team will be back fighting harder than ever to win for Britain and we look forward to joining them on this exciting journey. It has been an incredible success for us both in terms of engineering collaboration and the launch of our new Discovery which is why we are delighted to announce our continued support as Title and Exclusive Innovation partner for the 36th America's Cup.
Sailing's most successful Olympian added: "I couldn't be prouder of the team today". He also has a silver medal.
The New Zealanders had to overcome a daggerboard problem in the leadup to the first race.
In the third race, SoftBank Team Japan didn't give Artemis enough room at the fifth gate mark and was penalized. Artemis and Japan are all square after the Swedish crew claimed the first two victories this morning.
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