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VALENCIA - Team New Zealand sail trimmer Grant Loretz is happy America's Cup yachting defenders Alinghi haven't been given a free ride.
Alinghi took the cup off Team NZ with a 5-0 whitewash in Auckland four years ago.
This time, going into today's rest day, the teams are provisionally locked at 2-2 pending a Team NZ protest over how Alinghi's mainsail is fixed to the top of their mast.
"I think the defenders know we're here," Loretz said.
"It gives us a lot of confidence that we're giving them a bit of a hurry up and taken a couple off them already, and we'll look to go out the next race day and take another one from them."
Loretz noted that Alinghi skipper Brad Butterworth had adopted a more conservative game plan on the way to winning race four on the water on Thursday (NZ time) to draw level with Team NZ.
Butterworth applied a far tighter cover when SUI100 was in the lead than in the Swiss syndicate's defeats to Team NZ in races two and three.
"It was a pretty tricky day with a lot of puffs and a lot of shifts," Loretz said.
"Alinghi obviously changed their style a little bit from what we've seen in the last couple of races. They were a lot more defensive today. They didn't give us much space to breathe, really."
After the pre-regatta speculation that Alinghi had a rocket ship, Team NZ tactician Terry Hutchinson believed SUI100 and NZL92 were pretty evenly matched, with each having their strengths and weaknesses.
"When you see one boat in better pressure, that boat seems to go a lot better," he said.
"From our perspective, it's going to be continuing to do the things we do well and keep taking one race at a time."
Hutchinson said the tied scorecard was an indication of how evenly the teams were performing on a race course that wasn't easy.
Alinghi helmsman Ed Baird believed his crew were achieving their aim of putting themselves in a position to win every race, even though the scores were level.
"A couple of things haven't gone our way, but all we can do is keep trying," he said.
"I don't know if we sailed a perfect race, but we had a lot of opportunities for mistakes and the other guys in the back of boat really paid attention to what was happening around the course and made good solid calls."
- NZPA
