Yachting: Team NZ sharpen crew sailing skills

Team New Zealand have spent the last three weeks sharpening their sailing skills ahead of the final match racing regatta before next year's America's Cup.

Racing their first new boat, NZL84, the Emirates-sponsored team finished third in last month's two regattas in Valencia.

While NZL84 proved to be fast enough, the team's crew work was uncharacteristically under par.

In the match racing regatta, Team New Zealand suffered two losses - one to Oracle and the other to Luna Rossa.

In both races they suffered gear failure - a spinnaker tear in one and a blown-out spinnaker in the other. But in both races they were trailing.

"I guess if you look at last year we felt that as a sailing crew we were sailing well, but were off the pace boat-wise, so we put a huge amount of energy into trying to create a boat that was quick enough and we have," team boss Grant Dalton said.

"So probably planning-wise we had put a lot of time into getting the boat sorted and going quick but not enough time into gelling as a sailing crew."

Dalton believes they also over-rotated.

"We'll be more periodic in our rotations in the next regatta. I think that affected us last time. We overdid it."

Three-time Olympic medallist Ben Ainslie took the helm for a race in the last match racing regatta but Dalton said skipper Dean Barker will drive the boat in this regatta.

"We have been doing a lot of in-house racing and Ben is going from strength to strength, but in this regatta Dean will drive."

Ironically, after the last regattas, , two Team New Zealand crews finished first and second in the opening Medcup TP 52 regatta in Italy.

Warpath, with Dean Barker at the helm, won the regatta in a competitive fleet which included Russell Coutts.

"I guess the point of that was as a unit we can win regattas. We have got the skills, it is just we didn't have it all going properly."

Next week's match racing regatta is being held at the same time of year as next year's America's Cup. It is the first pre-regatta which includes semifinals and a final. Spain's Desafio Espanol have announced they will join Team New Zealand, Oracle and Luna Rossa and race their new boat, ESP88. Defenders Alinghi have indicated they will stick with their old boat SUI75.