Yachting: Coutts backs Italians over Team NZ

Three-time America's Cup winner Russell Coutts thinks Italy's Luna Rossa will beat Team New Zealand to win the challenger series final in next year's cup regatta.

His remarks, made to Swiss newspaper La Tribune de Geneva, gave added spice to the overnight (NZT) meeting between Team New Zealand, in their new boat NZL84, and Luna Rossa in the last match-racing regatta in Valencia before the challenger series.

Racing their new boat ITA86, the Italians beat Team New Zealand in last month's match racing regatta.

The two boats were even until Team New Zealand blew out their spinnaker.

Leading up to last month's regattas, it had been speculated that the Italian boat was not going well. However, their performance on the race track has proved otherwise.

Luna Rossa's sails are among the best on show - which could possibly be a Kiwi factor, as the celebrated Tom Schnackenberg, whose expertise is in sails, joined the side after he was ousted from Team New Zealand in 2004.

Coutts said: "Luna Rossa can rely on very good sailors and especially on [highly rated Australian] James Spithill, one of the most talented helmsmen of his generation. It's a team which retained the lessons learned during the last cup in New Zealand."

However, Coutts predicted the cup would be successfully defended by his former syndicate Alinghi in exactly one year. "It's a very strong syndicate with a design team combining the best in every field. It must be remembered that the final is a best of nine race series," he added. "Do you really think Alinghi will lose five races?"

Meanwhile, Emirates Team New Zealand's director of sailing and operations, Kevin Shoebridge, is confident his sailors are on track to peak in next year's challenger series.

The new boat appears on the pace but during the last two regattas, the crew work was scratchy.

With very little expected to separate the top teams in next year's event, the performance of each crew member could mean the difference between winning and losing.

Renowned for their slick crew work, Team New Zealand were under par in last month's regattas, which didn't go unnoticed by their rivals. Their failure was put down to the move to Valencia, over-rotation and tiredness.

"You always learn more when you lose but it doesn't feel like that at the time," Shoebridge said.

"We know we can fix the people thing. We know when it comes to crew work, we have the potential to be probably the best team in the world and we will get back to that stage."

He said psychologically, there were some hang-upsfollowing the drubbing by Alinghi in 2003 but not now.

"Once you start getting a good boat and beating them, the landscape changes quickly," he said.

Although they have faced only weak teams so far, Team New Zealand have looked extremely polished around the racecourse in this regatta, the last match-racing event before the challenger series. They claimed another two easy wins yesterday beating Sweden's Victory Challenge by 2m 52s and then Italy's Mascalzone Latino by 2m 17s.

Skipper and helmsman Dean Barker showed plenty of aggression in the pre-start in both matches which helped his side to comfortable wins in tricky light conditions.