Team NZ's support stacks up

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

Every day, Team New Zealand's mountain of support gets bigger.

Hotels send cakes, bakeries deliver bread and pastries as good-luck offerings.

Team New Zealand read every message that arrives at their base - the total is now in the hundreds of thousands.

When they open the doors at dawn every day, metres of fax paper lie across the floor. Sacks full of letters, some cut in the shape of red socks, await them.

A sail signed by the people of Nelson is draped over the front stairs; at the top of the stairwell is another sail, made from sacking. When the Team New Zealand sail did not come to their town, Te Kuiti couple John and Joan Jamieson created their own hessian version from a wool bale.

They packed their "wop wops sail" on the back of their ute and drove it to Auckland for the team.

All available wall space in the hallways of the big black shed is covered in messages, including a myriad faxes sent by everyone from the New Zealand cricket team to the dental department at Hutt Valley Health - even some local pizzerias are backing the Kiwis.

The shore crew spend the hours before the race start reading the letters and pinning them to the walls to calm their nerves.

Bowman Matt Mitchell's parents sent the signatures of everyone in the little mining town where they live in New South Wales.

"Lightning Ridge is where everyone is looking for the Australian gem stone, the Black Opal," the fax read. "We are getting pay TV connected today so we can all watch the races."

Further along Syndicate Row, e-mail pours in from all over the globe, egging the Prada team on.

Many express concern for injured bowman Max Sirena, who bled over the side of the boat on Tuesday.

Said one Italian: "Now that you have made a sacrifice of human blood, these bad Maori gods will stop."

Another wrote: "Every morning you must say this prayer: We wish the bad luck which has attached itself to you will drop on New Zealand and their black coffin."

Some Kiwis are also behind the Italians. Seven-year-old Rebecca Aitken, from the tiny Hawkes Bay town of Omakere, brought Prada 16 crayfish - one for every member of the crew - for dinner after the first day of racing.