Team NZ ‘getting in the groove’
‘‘We really have to work on those starts, they are still letting us down a little bit.’’ Team NZ tactician Blair Tuke
Team New Zealand tactician Blair Tuke feels the Kiwi crew are ‘‘getting into our groove’’ though acknowledges work needs to be done on race starts.
The Kiwis were late arrivals in Bermuda and desperately short of race practice for a variety of reasons.
But they playing a quick game of catchup, getting to know the intricacies of Bermuda’s Great Sound and their flying catamaran to make an early mark in this 35th America’s Cup.
Yesterday, they shrugged off two sloppy starts to win both of their races and jump to secondequal on the qualifying series leaderboard.
They showed good boat speed and slick crew work and Tuke, who mixes cycle grinding with his tactical responsibilities, feels it’s starting to come together.
‘‘It is an incredibly difficult place to sail. There aren’t many days here when you see a steady day,’’ Tuke said as the Kiwis worked their way through the minefield of wind shifts.
Team Japan and Ben Ainslie Racing suffered two losses, Artemis Racing was upset by Team France and defenders Oracle dropped their first race in five.
‘‘Today we had anything between 8-16 knots. It’s really difficult to get your boat set up for that the whole time so you have to deal with what you have got and mode the boat accordingly.’’
The Kiwis are yet to sail the perfect race under pressure but there have been patches of brilliance. ‘‘We really have to work on those starts, they are still letting us down a little bit,’’ Tuke said of getting shaded by Dean Barker in Monday’s first race and then suffering a penalty for entering the starting box too early against the British.
‘‘But at the same time it’s pleasing to know that if we do get behind at the start we can come back. So we are just starting to get into our groove and sail the boat nicely. I’m really happy.’’
Tuke’s thoughts were echoed by skipper Glenn Ashby.
He felt the penalty had been unavoidable in the temperamental cats after they got caught by a unexpected lift in breeze and catapulted into the starting box fractionally ahead of time.
Ashby likened yesterday’s racing with the gains and losses in wind to playing snakes and ladders.
‘‘It was almost a relief to come in with a day like that to be honest,’’ he said of collecting two victories from two races while others stumbled.
‘‘There were a lot of shifty wobbly puffs out there today and, as we saw with the other racing, there were snakes and ladders everywhere you went.
‘‘It definitely wasn’t over until it was over ... just a really difficult day to keep sailing the boat accurately the whole day because with the puffs and the lulls you need to give yourself a bit of wobble room so you didn’t touch down or get the hulls too high.
‘‘So from a trimming perspective and steering perspective it was a difficult one ... very much a heads out of the boat type of the day.’’
Team New Zealand have just one race today, lining out against Sweden’s Artemis Racing as the first phase of the double roundrobin stage is completed.
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