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KEY POINTS:
Sailing in their own boats, in their own waters and with direct passage to the final, the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series has always been Team New Zealand's to lose.
But after a poor showing in the second round of the regatta, the Kiwis are suddenly up against it.
Team New Zealand blitzed their way through the first round robin stage, but things came unstuck for the hosts in the second round, losing three of their four matches.
Their results have made more than a few Kiwi fans nervous, particularly with powerhouses Alinghi and BMWOracle in ominous form, and the question has been asked - just what is going wrong aboard Team New Zealand?
Emirates Team New Zealand boss Grant Dalton said while it was easy to look at the three losses and panic, each race needed to be examined in isolation.
He said simple mistakes had proved costly.
"In these courses a very minor mistake is seriously punished," said Dalton. "You have to win the start, or if you don't win the start you have to get the right side. That matters in every match-race, but here the race is so short and because of the tide you can push a guy out to the exclusion marks and just sit on them all the way in."
In the losses to Damiani Italia and BMWOracle, New Zealand skipper Dean Barker had been in a controlling position early in the pre-start, but relinquished that power in the last minute by, as he puts it, "trying to be a bit too tricky". Sunday's loss to Team Origin was slightly different as Barker simply chose the wrong side of the course.
Dalton is confident Team New Zealand are still in good shape for the finals.
"From my point of view we're reasonably comfortable. Would we have liked to have won every race? Yes we would, and it would have been naive of me to think that it's okay to lose races, but as it sits we'll judge ourselves by Saturday night.
"We just need to get our timing a little better, but crew-work wise we're certainly fine."
Little progress was made yesterday in finding who will eventually challenge Team New Zealand in the Louis Vuitton finals. With the breeze on the Waitemata very unstable, organisers were only able to get in two of the five scheduled knockout races.
Team Origin overcame K-Challenge in an enthralling race to win through to the first quarter-final against Damiani Italia. In the second sail-off, Luna Rossa managed to hold off China Team by one second, after successfully completing a penalty turn on the finish line.
Luna Rossa will meet BMWOracle in the other quarter-final today.
The winners go through to the semifinal to fight it out for a place in the Challenger final against Alinghi.
SAIL-OFF RESULTS
Team Origin bt K-Challenge (1m 52s)
Luna Rossa bt China Team (01s)
TODAY'S SCHEDULED RACES
Quarter-final 1: Damiani Italia v Team Origin
Quarter-final 2: BMWOracle v Luna Rossa
Semifinal: Winner QF1 v Winner QF2
