It wasn’t for the lack of effort, it wasn’t for tactical nous, but Sir Ben Ainslie’s hopes of bringing the America’s Cup back to Britain is over, for the time being at least, for the simple reason that they did not have a fast enough boat.

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 the semi-finals of the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup Challenger Play-offs

Land Rover BAR won one of the three races, but the New Zealand boat, which had been a wreck when it capsized two days ago, could be the best one in Bermuda. Their decision to have cyclists powering their systems rather than traditional hand grinders, seems to give them a power edge, particularly late in races. Throughout the semi-final and the round-robin Qualifiers before it, they have not lost a race in which they had held the lead.

“We gave it our best,” Ainslie said to his crew as they crossed the finish line for the last time. “That’s the best we have sailed today by a long way.”

Ainslie had won most of his starts and the British crew’s boat-handling had improved by the day. But it was a lack of straight-line speed, particularly on the upwind legs, that cost them. They got quicker as the racing progressed, but were always playing catch-up.

However, Ainslie confirmed that the team would challenge to the next America’s Cup, which will be in two years’ time if the ultimate winner is any team other than New Zealand, the only ones not to sign a new framework agreement.

“We struggled coming into this with a lack of speed for a number of different reasons,” Ainslie said. “The whole team has just dug so deep to get us more competitive and we did that throughout this competition to the point where I think there wasn’t a huge amount to call between the two boats today. I couldn’t be prouder of them. We will be back next time and we will be stronger.

“We were struggling in certain conditions. We were able to address that, the design, engineering, shore team did a phenomenal job to turn it around from what was not looking good two-three months ago.

“Ultimately we didn’t quite get there in time but it’s not for a lack of effort and determination.”

What BAR needed this week, after New Zealand, picked them as their semi-finals opponents, was a bit of luck, but they had none. A damaged wing cost them the first two races, but when New Zealand suffered a similar problem just before race three, they made the start line with moments to spare after high winds had delayed the start.

Then, when New Zealand capsized ahead of race four, high winds on Wednesday resulted in racing being cancelled, giving them an extra 24 hours to repair the damage.

New Zealand had been bullish saying that they would have made the start if needed on Wednesday, but rumours on the dockside were that they had been asking Groupama Team France, who had been eliminated at the weekend, to borrow parts as late as yesterday morning.

It seemed New Zealand might still have problems, as they were left at the start in yesterday’s first race, but despite BAR holding a lead of more than 400 metres at one stage, New Zealand had the edge on speed and slowly clawed the lead back before taking over on the fifth leg of seven.

Needing the perfect race to stay alive in race six, BAR sailed it. Ainslie edged the start and forced New Zealand into a tight position on the first downwind gybe. From there, BAR were flawless and finished 20 seconds in front. But in the third race, Peter Burling, the New Zealand helmsman, got the better of the start and held on to it to eliminate BAR.

“We didn’t ultimately get that America’s Cup home; we knew it was going incredibly tough at the first attempt, but where the team has come from, even in the last couple of months with the performance gains, is a huge credit to everyone in the team,” Ainslie said.

“Development-wise, we weren’t able to catch up with the existing teams in time. Catching up with those years of experience and expertise in engineering design is incredibly different. I would say we were the most improved team performance-wise through the competition and it shows the potential we have for the future.”

New Zealand have a day off before they compete in the final of the Play-offs against either Artemis or SoftBank Team Japan. The Swedish team won all three of their races yesterday, turning a 3-1 deficit into a 4-3 lead.