That sinking feeling ...

By HELEN TUNNAH

Even before the first race of the America's Cup began, the signs were ominous for Team New Zealand.

Alinghi's two boats were warming up in stiff, southerly breezes, their two crews tuning the boats ready for the early afternoon start.

Team New Zealand's boats were already in trouble, and their rivals had noticed.

On board NZL82, Dean Barker asked for a genoa to be raised ready for racing. A shackle broke and the sail could not be lifted.

On her sister boat, NZL81,which will not be raced but which is needed to put the black boat through her paces to take on Alinghi, there was more serious trouble.

Team New Zealand will not say what that trouble is, but it was serious enough for the boat to remain in dock tomorrow.

Out on the water, the problems were considered bad enough for Team New Zealand to offload a cargo of regional journalists, in Auckland for the opening weekend of the America's Cup.

Instead, the support boat made an emergency run back to base to get desperately needed spare parts.

With the shackle replaced, and racing minutes away, Barker asked for a check of his boat.

"When the jib halyard fails, it can load other parts of the boat up," he said later.

"We didn't see any problems then - we thought it was fine to race."

He rallied his crew for their long-awaited first encounter with past team-mates and mentors Russell Coutts and Brad Butterworth, now leading Alinghi's crew.

It was a start to be relished. Good winds, good boats and aggressive manoeuvring.

Barker and his afterguard were clearly not overawed by Coutts, and through the on-board microphones the tacticians could be heard calling the line even for wind direction.

The 20-knot southerly breezes and a large spectator craft had helped whip up a hard, choppy sea, and Barker's low-sitting boat, thought to have been designed to be "wet" and carry a limited amount of water, was washed by two stiff waves.

Despite the onboard water, Barker took his boat across the line first, edging Alinghi by a second, and gaining the windward position for the first beat, which was expected to reveal so much about the two boats' performance.

Initially it looked good for Team New Zealand.

The black boat began to nudge ahead, by only a few metres initially, then to almost a boat's length.

But soon an alarming level of water had washed into the cockpit.

"We felt pretty good off the start line but we started taking on so much water," Barker said.

"The sea state was in a fairly short chop, and I think that was a factor, along with the strong breeze and the spectator wash.

"We certainly haven't encountered a problem like that in any of the other sailing we have done."

He asked mid-bowman Matt Mitchell to grab the yacht's toilet - a blue bucket tied on board - and start bailing. It was a hopeless task.

"I felt like it was a losing battle," Mitchell, sailing in his first cup race, confessed.

Alinghi, too, had worries.

In the challenger regatta, SUI64 had proved strong and powerful upwind, able to take an advantage from a disadvantaged position.

Not against the black boat.

SUI64's crew was also wary of the chop.

"There's some bad waves here, Russell, that'll hurt," Coutts was warned.

Team New Zealand were struggling. Standing knee-deep in water Mitchell battled to bail, while his trimmers were immersed up to their waists.

The boat's self-bailing mechanisms were either not working, or were not good enough, and concern mounted as water began flowing into the hold where sails are stored.

As Alinghi benefited from two wind changes, Team New Zealand's lead vanished and Barker tacked away.

"He's going to have to bail, Russell, he's out of there, he's gone," Butterworth called.

"By the time we tacked off, we were more worried about the water than the other boat," Barker said.

For crew member Adam Beashel, the signs must have brought back ominous memories.

An Australian, he was on board OneAustralia in the 1995 Cup when she broke up and sank off San Diego.

The wind speed, now around 22 knots, and the stiff seas created similar conditions to those which buckled and almost sank Young America in the last campaign.

As the black boat sailed away, the news became more positive on Alinghi.

"It's close," Butterworth said. "I've got us just crossing at the moment. We're about one and a half ahead, one ahead."

Team New Zealand turned back to sail towards Alinghi for the first cross, now two boat lengths behind and with the 25-tonne boat weighed down with up to 5 tonnes of water.

It was too much for the boat's new light-weight boom. The outer end of the carbon fibre boom exploded, shards tearing the mainsail.

Three of Team New Zealand's afterguard tried to make repairs.

The boom needed to be stabilised, not only so the first leg could be navigated safely, but for downwind speeds as well.

Alinghi strategist Jochen Schuemann, a triple Olympic Games gold medallist, was quick to pick a failure, asking his trimmers if they could see a problem with Team New Zealand's mainsail.

On the black boat, with water still pouring in, there were worries about the load on the boom.

But then came yet another gear failure.

A titanium ring attaching the genoa to the deck shattered, sending the sail flapping back to be grabbed and hauled in by anxious crew.

Then came indications Team New Zealand's race might soon be over.

"Do you think we can do enough here to get this around the track," one sailor asked.

"Yeah," came the swift, short, anonymous reply.

Moments later, with a broken boom, broken headsail and more water pouring in, the sailor asked again: "Should we go round like this?"

This time the reply was less confident: "What do you think?"

They had no time to decide.

At the front of the boat, the crew had tried to hoist a second genoa.

But the first failure had damaged the headfoil and the second sail also blew out, twisting the fragile boat dangerously.

Barker threw his yacht into a spin to ease the strain, the twists and groans of the boat clearly audible through the microphones, and again his crew was urged to haul the sail back in quickly to prevent damage.

Now there was no hesitation. The race committee was called, and NZL82 with her clearly devastated crew limped home.

There was little reaction on Alinghi to Team New Zealand's catastrophe.

"It was a good boat race up until then," Butterworth said.

His later comments were revealing.

"It took us a while to get going - we got saved a couple of times by a puff. It's not easy in these waves."

Alinghi sailed the final five legs alone, needing to finish the race to claim the point.

But the Swiss eased back to save their boat. They used a spinnaker on only one downwind leg, and held the boat firmly in check, allowing the keen golfers on board to debate the merits of three woods against two irons.

For Team New Zealand there could be no such luxury with their thoughts.

Heads were down, and Barker sat slumped in the canoe of the boat, having given the helm away for the ride home.

Barker later faced the international media and sponsors to explain Team New Zealand's disastrous start.

"It was just one of those days, one of those days you want to forget.

"We don't for any stretch of the imagination think we are out of the event just because we have had a bad day."

Syndicate head Tom Schnackenberg said it was not known whether the gear failures were connected.

The headsail problems were new, but Team New Zealand had broken one of the light-weight booms before.

He said the extra weight of the water may have created too much pressure for the boom to carry.

"You try to make the boom as light as you can - you don't want any excess weight - but perhaps our safety margins were tested rather more than we had hoped."

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