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Three times America's Cup winner Russell Coutts says if Team New Zealand can get ahead they can defend any lead downwind.
Coutts, who parted ways with Alinghi in 2004, is in Valencia for a few days. He spoke at the America's Cup Hall of Fame dinner where Kiwi designer Laurie Davidson and Bruno Trouble were inducted.
Coutts watched Team New Zealand beat Alinghi in race two which he said was fascinating.
"There were errors that shouldn't have been made," he told Britain's Daily Telegraph.
"There were opportunities for both teams. Team New Zealand at the end of the day capitalised on those opportunities really well. The key moment in the race was the bad lee-bow tack by Alinghi which was quite frankly a clanger and handed Team New Zealand the race two-thirds of the way up the final windward beat.
"They [Alinghi] will be kicking themselves, they were in control and gave it away."
Coutts said SUI100 and NZL92 appeared even enough and the series was all on. "I still think Alinghi, when it wants to, has a little height advantage over Team New Zealand which is a nice feature to have. They are certainly not going to be able to sail badly and win this series."
He said Team New Zealand had an excellent chance of winning if they sailed well. "If Alinghi make the odd mistake they can win it. Having said that we all know that Alinghi is an awesome team. Team New Zealand is going to have to sail real well ... get that first shift right in order to beat them."
He still thought Alinghi would win the series as he believed they had a slight speed advantage.
He said the boats appeared even downwind. "If Team New Zealand get ahead they can defend any lead downwind."
Coutts said he had not made a decision about his future.
Full coverage of the America's Cup from nzherald.co.nz/americascup and desktoptv.co.nz
