Rowing: Heat on Kiwi crews to make semis

Two four-seat crews will need to sharpen their act in tonight's repechages if New Zealand's already strong semifinal hand at this week's world championships is to be further enhanced.

Both the men's lightweight coxless four and the women's quad finished fourth in their heats in Poznan, Poland and were some way off the pace.

The men's group of Richard Beaumont, Todd Petherick, James Lassche and Graham Oberlin-Brown clocked 6m 48.26, almost 12s behind winners Denmark. They must make the top two in their repechage to reach the semis.

The quad of Harriet Austin, Louise Trappitt, Sarah Barnes and Genevieve Armstrong recorded a time of 7:21.27, 11s adrift of heat winners the United States and the slowest of the heat times.

They need to finish in the first four of the six-boat race to make it into the A final.

Going into the semifinals and repechages, New Zealand's squad have produced six heat wins - including adaptive single sculler Robin Tinga - two seconds, two thirds and two fourths.

Lightweight double scullers Storm Uru and Peter Taylor continued their strong European form by winning their heat by almost 3s ahead of Greek pair Georgios Konsolas and Dimitrios Mougios.

However, they are in for a tough time, judging by the performances of the other three heat winners.

Uru and Taylor won in 7:12.84; the other heats were won in 7:05.12 (France), 7:06.99 (Canada) and 7:06.423 (Britain).

Uru believes they are a far stronger crew after last year's disappointment in not making the Olympic final in Beijing.

"What it did reinforce is you do have to make changes to get to the top but it's not quick and there is a process and we're starting to head that way," Uru said.

"We've gained a lot more experience since then [Beijing] and things are a lot more mature so things are becoming easier."