Yachting: Team NZ start final act with two easy wins

Team New Zealand started the final act of this season's America's Cup yachting series with two comfortable wins this morning (NZ time) in Valencia.

Taking on China Team in a north-east breeze of around 10 knots, rising at times to 13 or 14 knots, the New Zealand boat swept home by 2 minutes 53 seconds.

In the second flight of the day, Team NZ beat Italy's +39 Challenge by 2min 8sec.

Team NZ shared the top of the leaderboard on two points with other double winners Alinghi (Switzerland), BMW Oracle (USA), Luna Rossa (Italy) and Desafio Espanol (Spain).

"We take the wins happily but there's still a lot of racing before this regatta is over," Team NZ leader Grant Dalton said.

"Today we had a good workout even though we had the luxury of being able to sail our own race against China Team and were not seriously threatened by +39.

"Even so, there's not a team in this regatta that couldn't pull off an upset win.

"So there's no easy race; the boys have to work hard even if the margin suggests otherwise."

Against China, NZL 84 skipper Dean Barker won the start by nine seconds and from there the New Zealanders maintained a loose cover over their opponents while extending their lead mark by mark to the finish.

With +39 penalised for a port-starboard incident in the pre-start, Barker and his crew were untroubled throughout the second race.

Team NZ take on Sweden's Victory Challenge and Italy's Mascalzone Latino tomorrow.

"We have a big weekend ahead with Luna Rossa which has been in good form on Saturday and on Sunday, we're up against Spain in their new boat," said Dalton who took on the role of runner/grinder in today's races.

- NZPA