Yachting: Cup sailors tackle the weighty issues

All the sailors in Alicante for the first round of the Audi Med Cup have a weight problem.

If they are even 1kg overweight, they are docked points.

The Swiss Marazzi team discovered that after the first race. They won impressively but, when the men with the scales arrived, they were 1kg over the official limit of 1273kg for the crew of up to 15.

It's why you see many Emirates Team NZ personnel on the lung-busting run to the top of the Castillo Santa Barbara - the mediaeval fortress built by the Carthaginians and added to by the Moors. It dominates the Alicante skyline; its ancient mass looking down over the marina housing the Med Cup.

It's no mild jog; a heart-breaker of a climb but a good way to help ensure the Team NZ weight does not nudge above the 1273kg limit. They have their own food, cook and a target weight to maintain - all the time knowing the random weight testers could show up and ruin their campaign, not to mention their meals.

The weight limit is because the TP52 yachts contesting the Med Cup are smaller than America's Cup yachts which weigh in at about 24 tonnes. Crew weight, therefore, has little or no impact but the TP52s are small enough that, if a crew is beefed up, they can help make the yacht go faster, just as in a Laser or other sailing dinghy.

So the Med Cup Spanish Inquisition - sorry, the random weight testers - strike all teams at some stage (and maybe more than once).

"I'm the biggest offender," grinned Team NZ boss Grant Dalton. "I'm 2kg over my goal weight which is about the worst of all of us. Naturally, I'm not hearing a great deal about it ..."

Naturally, he's working to get it off and found the gate to the flagpole on top of the Castillo Santa Barbara open so he could get right to the summit. That run around the Alicante foreshore and up to the castle has become an integral part of this campaign for Team NZ, as has their gym programme and diet management.

If there was any illustration of the need for this, it came in Marazzi's win in the first race.

The syndicate has been supported by Alinghi, although not financially. It has a stellar cast of sailors, including legendary Olympic medallist and Alinghi America's Cup sailor Jochen Schuemann, plus renowned Kiwi yachtsman John Cutler.

They and Swiss helmsman Flavio Marazzi make a formidable team and, even though they enjoyed some luck with a wind shift, they are a strong combination. They looked to have stolen a march on the field before their weight problem bounced them back down to third, equal with Team NZ.

Marazzi are sailing the old Artemis yacht - the Swedish-based Artemis team have a new one and there is always some irony when the old version beats home the 'new generation' - particularly when the syndicate boasts many big New Zealand America's Cup names including Russell Coutts, Hamish Pepper, Robbie Naismith, Matthew Mason, Daniel Fong and Jared Henderson. They came home seventh after a dreadful start.