What a thrilling - and agonising - few weeks it has been. Team New Zealand was sailing away with the 34th America's Cup and we revelled in the excitement.
Up 8-1, it was, as the cliche goes, all over bar the shouting.
Then, as we all so painfully know, came one of the great comebacks in sporting history. Race by race, Oracle Team USA found extra speed. Day by day, their crew work became slicker.
Opportunities for Team New Zealand slipped by. From virtual dead cert, the campaign was, by the end, virtually dead in the water.
Hopes, nevertheless, had surged again briefly when Team New Zealand managed to win two of the three starts in the last two days of racing, only to be blown away as Oracle sped past.
It could well be Oracle had the stronger crew, with gritty skipper Jimmy Spithill and four time Olympic champion Sir Ben Ainslie as tactician. But in the end Oracle simply became too fast upwind. In the end, the faster boat won.
Team New Zealand got the jump and pulled ahead. Then, effectively, it ran out of puff as Oracle ran it down.
Any improvements made were more than matched, and the team's limited funding was swamped by comparison with the resources of multibillionaire Larry Ellison and Oracle.
The underdog was smart, flexible and innovative and had its day, but eventually was outmuscled. The America's Cup, too, has always been about technology and, finally and clearly, Oracle won that race.
It's been extraordinary the way the gripping contest and the giant catamarans, the top of their sails higher than Dunedin's tallest building, captured interest. After a slow start, it grew like a surging tide, and drew in supporters everywhere, including hordes who have little or no interest in sport.
While the ultimate failure has knocked the wind out of the sails of many, it is worth staying upbeat and remembering that this is sport, and this is what happens.
Enjoy the roller-coaster, the shared community enthusiasm, the winning sensation, the distraction from the cares of the world while it lasts.
But when the fun and the heartache is over, it's time to put the racing back in perspective. Compared with life and death reality, it really doesn't matter that much.
From a New Zealand point of view, we can still be proud New Zealanders built and improved Oracle, that the team's CEO, Russell Coutts, learnt his sailing at Ravensbourne (now having been in five America's Cup-winning teams) and that New Zealand sailors were on board. As an aside, the racing shows the effectiveness of tough competition.
It wasn't until Oracle realised it was not in the race that it made the changes and pulled out the extra effort. It wasn't until then that phenomenal improvements were realised. That, so often, is human nature.
There needs to be the challenge for there to be the response. There needs to be the spectre of failure to bring out the best.
For better, and often for worse, this is why technology often leaps ahead in times of war and is the fundamental principle behind the capitalist system. You cannot cruise if the cost of mediocrity could well be bankruptcy.
Unless some international billionaire wants a play and prestige toy, it is hard to see how New Zealand on its own, or even with global sponsors like Emirates and Toyota, will have the resources to mount another top challenge.
Nonetheless, it is probably a little early to speculate.
In the meantime, we can acknowledge, despite the final disappointment, all that Grant Dalton, Dean Barker et al achieved. In our loyalty, we can thank them for the stirring and stimulating times they provided.
In the meantime, too, those of us in the South can sweep away some of the disappointment and ride the sixes in the Indian champions league with Otago's Neil Broom and the Volts.
We can revel in our provincial team strutting its stuff on a world stage.
And should this team, at the moment in scorching form, fall, we should also not forget what they, in their way, have already achieved.
