Two wins put wind into sails

By JULIE ASH

Team New Zealand boss Grant Dalton may not have been crowing about it, but plenty of others sat up and took notice of his team's success over big-wigs Oracle and Alinghi in the second America's Cup pre-regatta.

After losing to Team Luna Rossa, facing Alinghi and Oracle in the same day was a big ask for the New Zealand syndicate, and two wins was a remarkable achievement, despite Dalton's attempts to downplay it.

"I think it is too early to judge too much," he said.

"It just feels okay and everyone likes each other and everybody is calm and we are just going about doing our job."

The winds off the Valencia coast were again light and shifty.

Although Alinghi are still coming to grips with life without Russell Coutts - and Oracle also have a fairly new afterguard - both teams have spent considerably more time together than Team New Zealand's afterguard, who have come together only in the past week.

Team NZ beat Alinghi, who had Spanish King Juan Carlos on board, by 1m 04s and Oracle by 31s in a tight race.

"We debriefed pretty hard after the loss to Team Luna Rossa," Dalton said.

"We were quite honest internally. We had to start better and we did."

The team were starting to see the benefit of additions such as Terry Hutchinson, who had just come from victory in the Farr 40 world championships, and Finn gold medallist Ben Ainslie.

"It is neat for me to be sailing with guys at that level," said Dalton. "I have never really sailed with guys that are so intuitive."

That's a big call from a man who has sailed around the world seven times.