Yachting: Team NZ wins fleet race

New Zealand won the final fleet race at the Cascais AC45 World Series regatta at Cascais, Portugal, overnight.

Dean Barker - who sailed with Glenn Ashby, Ray Davies, James Dagg and Winston Macfarlane - described the win as "fantastic".

"Two years to go," he told TVNZ in a reference to the planned America's Cup, but added: "There's still a lot of work to be done".

The New Zealanders stumbled in the previous day's match racing final, losing to Oracle 4 in the America's Cup class World Series regatta.

In the fleet race early today, the team appeared to have returned to the form which won it the preliminary races last weekend.

Oracle 4 made a break at the start of the second leg and quickly got what looked to be a comfortable lead. But it was the sort of day when passing lanes could open suddenly for a team to make a big gain; or for a hole in the breeze to form equally suddenly with consequent losses.

For Barker, it was a classic come-from-behind win. For most of the race, he was the patient hunter with Oracle 4 (James Spithill) in his sights after he had picked off Oracle 5 (Russell Coutts).

They dramatically snatched the lead on the second down-wind leg and Barker immediately became the hunted with Artemis, Oracle 4 and Oracle 5 chasing hard.

Barker hung on and finished 21sec ahead of Artemis and 34 ahead of Oracle 4. He paid tribute to the crew and their ability to bounce back from the bad day on Saturday.

He said tactician Ray Davies and wing trimmer Glenn Ashby made the right calls on the breeze as they moved on Oracle 4.

- NZPA