Glenn Ashby, the Emirates Team New Zealand skipper, has chalked up his team’s latest setbacks as another learning curve and believes that he and his team-mates “will come out stronger” from their ordeal.

Team New Zealand damaged both wing sails on their AC50 during Tuesday’s Louis Vuitton America’s Cup Challenger Play-off Semi-finals.

The first wing sail was damaged while warming up for their third match against Land Rover BAR and the spare at the start of the fourth when the boat pitch-poled in the starting box in white-knuckle conditions on the Great Sound.

However, Team New Zealand’s shore team were equal to the task, working frantically throughout the night to get the boat ready to resume racing, which was postponed yesterday because of strong winds.

“The guys have obviously had a big night getting everything organised for today’s racing to be on the water,” said Ashby, who also serves as wing trimmer while Peter Burling takes the helm.

“It was definitely a huge day for the whole team yesterday and the guys have done an absolute fantastic job over last night to get the boat back into racing condition today.

“Everything has been pulled apart and checked. There would have been 30 to 40 guys working on the boat on and off over the last 24 hours and they are a really fantastic group of guys. It’s a great environment to see the strength of the team in these sort of situations.

“Obviously, a lot of the structural components on the boat were sound. A lot of the non-structural components — all the air-dynamic fairings on the boat — are almost superficial in a sense and don’t have anything much to the do with the actual structural integrity of the yacht.”

Team New Zealand are no strangers to adversity, as their foiling catamaran was damaged in a collision with BAR during official practice races in the final lead-up to the Qualifiers. “The team has definitely had some adversity over the last two or three weeks with different pieces on the boat,” Ashby added. “But that is one of the strengths of Emirates Team New Zealand: the ability to react to this sort of thing, and there’s absolutely no doubt we will come out a stronger team.

“We will be back to put our helmets and goggles back on and get out there tomorrow. We are really looking forward to a three-race day.”

Team New Zealand lead their best-of-nine semi-final with BAR, skippered by Sir Ben Ainslie, 3-1.

“Obviously, a three-race day is a big day physically on the water for the guys and we want to get as many points on the board as quickly as we can and try and get into the final as quickly and as cleanly as we possibly can,” Ashby said.

“So we’re very much looking forward to getting out there and putting our best foot forward for tomorrow’s conditions.”

As for Tuesday’s spectacular nosedive, Ashby said: “Accelerating the boat down once we lost one of the rudders elevated us out of the water. The boat went into a bit of a nosedive and ultimately into a catastrophic capsize.

“From where we were sitting in the back of the boat, it was all dramatic, but just really happy nobody was injured. The boys got a few cuts and bruises, but nobody got seriously hurt.

“Yesterday was absolutely not ideal for anyone. We were sailing in top-end conditions and the added risk of having a capsize is greater. Every knot you sort of go up towards that wind limit, it does get harder to sail these boats.

“When you do sail in those windier conditions, these boats become extremely difficult to handle and it really becomes a survival test rather than an actual match race in the top-end conditions.

“We hadn’t learnt to sail the boat in anything more than about 22 knots of wind before and so yesterday was a first for us as a team and, to be honest I think, for most of the teams because the boats are so difficult and fragile in those conditions.”