Sailing: Kiwi team left playing catch-up at Youth America's Cup

The NZL sailing Team during the Red Bull Youth America's Cup. Photo / Red Bull

The NZL sailing Team endured a frustrating first day of the Red Bull Youth America's Cup finals and will need to improve dramatically tomorrow if they are to defend the title they won in 2013.

The Kiwis went into the finals as one of the favourites but were left playing catch-up after the first race when they got caught in traffic and finished seventh of the eight boats.

Things didn't get much better as they copped a penalty for being over the line at the start of race two and they also picked up another penalty in the third race for interference on the boundary.

They recovered to work their way through the field in the final race to finish second, leaving the NZL Sailing Team fifth after the first day on 18 points.

Land Rover BAR Academy were in a strong position on 28 points at the top of the leaderboard after collecting a pair of seconds and a win and they hold a seven-point lead over Switzerland's Team Tilt and Team France Jeune in third.

Light and shifty winds of 7-10 knots made life difficult for chasing boats as the leading crews tended to clear out from the rest of the fleet. More breeze is forecast for tomorrow, which would be welcomed by the NZL Sailing Team who went into the final with high hopes after topping their group in qualifying last week.

"It was a tough day out there," skipper Logan Dunning Beck said. "It was really difficult to keep the boat going.

"The starts were brutal, with eight boats on the startline. We were getting tangled in the pack, who had their claws out, and we just couldn't climb our way through.

"We battled like that for two races and then finally cleaned up our act in the last race and managed to get some clearance off the rest of the fleet to come back from a pretty bad start to finish second.

"It looks like there will be wind again tomorrow so we will be racing for sure and we will be on the comeback. We will keep pushing tomorrow and hopefully Lady Luck will swing our way."

Three more races are scheduled tomorrow, with 10 points on offer for the winning boat. The NZL Sailing Team will need three top results and hope BAR finish back in the pack in a couple of races to have any hope of winning the Youth America's Cup.

The Youth America's Cup is for sailors aged 18-24 and was established to create a pathway to the America's Cup. New Zealand won the inaugural event in San Francisco in 2013 and four members of that team - Peter Burling, Blair Tuke, Andy Maloney and Guy Endean - graduated to Emirates Team New Zealand.

Standings after the first three races in the finals of the Red Bull Youth America's Cup
Land Rover BAR Academy (GBR) - 28 points
Team Tilt (SUI) - 21
Team France Jeune - 21
Artemis Youth Racing (SWE) - 20
Team BDA (BER) - 19
NZL Sailing Team - 18
Spanish Impulse - 15
SVB Team Germany - 14