Team NZ ‘head and shoulders above rest’

British challenger Sir Ben Ainslie has outlined the task in front of the three teams looking to wrestle the America’s Cup away from Team New Zealand, declaring the Kiwis are ‘‘head and shoulders above’’ their opponents.

Ainslie’s INEOS Team UK look to have the most to do after their world series regatta struggles in December when they were horribly off the pace.

But he suggests all three challengers will have their work cut out to be competitive against the defenders in March and has urged them to push each other as hard as possible in the Prada Cup to improve their chances.

The Prada Cup challenger series starts on January 15 and runs until late February.

Ainslie acknowledges the problems in front of his syndicate but insists they can be remedied to make Britannia competitive, though he knows American Magic and Luna Rossa will be constantly improving as well.

‘‘I think you will see a lot of development across all three challengers through the Prada Cup,’’ Ainslie told the Shirley Robertson Sailing Podcast.

‘‘And whoever gets through … we are really going to have to push hard for that challenge to be able to give the Kiwis a race because right now they are standing head and shoulders above the other three teams. We’ve really got to up our game to be competitive.’’

Team New Zealand won the world series regatta, only dropping one race to American Magic when skipper Peter Burling tried a couple of radical options and came unstuck.

The British lost all their races and their lack of light wind performance was embarrassingly exposed as was their habit of losing speed through turns when sailing well in stronger breeze.

It was a wake-up call for Ainslie, though not entirely unexpected. He was grateful it happened in a warm-up regatta and his only regret is that didn’t happen earlier with world series events in Italy and Britain cancelled because of the Covid-19 situation.

‘‘We were fortunate to have that opportunity to highlight these issues though, frankly, we have been working on some for a long time,’’ Ainslie said.

After an intense review INEOS Team UK are now in a race against time to make significant adjustments. They have already emerged from their shed with a new rig and sail package and a different set of foils to what they used during the official racing.

There have been promising signs in their testing this week. On Wednesday Britannia looked impressive in its preferred stronger wind zone as the four teams trained in 20 knots southwesterlies on the preferred inner harbour course.

The Brits appeared to be more than a match for American Magic during impromptu hook-ups.

The Americans were sporting the skeg extension they have added over the Christmas break, a modification designed to better control the air flow under the hull and lock it closer to the water surface during foiling, enhancing Patriot’s signature bow-down low profile.