Yachting: Old NZL60 still has the goods

Alinghi's SUI75 (bottom) and K-Challenge's FRA60 race off Trapani yesterday. Picture / Reuters

TRAPANI - Alinghi tactician Brad Butterworth chuckled when asked if he felt like a proud dad watching former Team New Zealand boat NZL60 sail past his team.

It has been a long time coming but the defenders were finally beaten - not once but twice - on the last day of the eighth America's Cup pre-regatta in Trapani.

French syndicate K-Challenge, driving the old New Zealand boat and 2000 cup winner NZL60, rolled them on the last run to slide home first.

Then Chris Dickson's BMW Oracle Racing picked the fickle wind shifts better to also beat the champions.

The regatta came to an interesting end with Alinghi, Team New Zealand, BMW Oracle Racing and Luna Rossa all tied on points.

The tiebreaker was broken by the number of wins the four teams had scored against other.

Alinghi and Team New Zealand had two wins each but because Alinghi had beaten Team New Zealand they were awarded the regatta win. Team New Zealand were second, Luna Rossa third and Oracle fourth.

For K-Challenge their win over Alinghi topped off what has been a superb regatta, which started with a win over Team New Zealand .

The fact that they beat both Team New Zealand and Alinghi is ironic because a handful of sailors in both those teams sailed NZL60 - now called FRA60 - to victory in the 2000 defence.

Butterworth was an instrumental member of that Team New Zealand setup.

"I had good times on that boat," he said.

"I love it. It went past the Jordan or the Capri or whatever you call Team New Zealand's boat, the other day," he said referring to Team New Zealand boss Grant Dalton's comment about NZL82 being a Jordan rather than a McLaren. "So obviously it is not too bad.

"To have sailed 31 match races unbeaten and then to have lost two races on the final day of the final regatta of the year was disappointing," Butterworth admitted.

"It was a setback in terms of we would have loved to have gone the whole way through winning every race."

Team New Zealand finished the regatta with wins over Spain and Luna Rossa.

Skipper Dean Barker said it was a tough event mentally and his team would walk away from it with a lot of what-ifs, particularly with the K-Challenge race.

"Across the board we are happy. Obviously we'd much prefer to be walking away having won this regatta, but we are happy with the way things have gone."

The fleet racing starts tomorrow but that is it for the year for match racing.

In the three match-racing regattas sailed this year Team New Zealand won 27 of their 33 races.

Three of their six defeats came against Alinghi. Team New Zealand were outclassed by the Swiss in the startbox in two of those matches, while boat speed was the main contributing factor in Alinghi's win in the second regatta in Sweden.

Crew errors resulted in losses against Italian challengers +39 and France's K-Challenge, while a torn jib sheet helped Oracle to victory over them in Sweden.

Alinghi ended the year with 31 wins from 33 races.

Oracle have 28, one more than Team New Zealand, while Luna Rossa claimed 25.

"I think in general we feel we have been sailing pretty well in these match races, but we realise we can be a lot better than we are," Barker said.

"It gives us a lot to work on."

Despite dropping two races, Barker said Alinghi still set the benchmark.

"In Malmo it seemed like they had widened the gap in terms of speed; they were bloody fast. Here they don't seem to have that same advantage.

"I don't know if they have changed something, or what. I think people will go away from these regattas figuring out what changes they are going to make to catch up to the level they are at - then figure out how to pass them."