It was a terrible day for the Kiwis, who hadn’t raced since March 2nd, 2000, when they defended the America’s Cup against the Prada Challenge.

On Saturday, in tough conditions with Southwest winds over 22 knots, and short, steep, choppy water, the Black boat, which initially showed impressive speed, wasn’t up to the challenge.

“Obviously we are very disappointed to break gear in the first race,” admitted Team New Zealand skipper Dean Barker. “But we were sailing along in plenty of breeze and sometimes things break and when that happens that can lead to other things going wrong, but we seemed to have a lot of gremlins on the boat today.”

Although Barker later spoke about problems well before the start sequence, the problems began in earnest shortly after the start gun fired, with both boats streaking out to the left side of the race course on starboard tack. As the boats fought through the strong winds and choppy water, it soon became clear that water was accumulating at an alarming rate in the cockpit of NZL-82.

“We felt pretty good off the start line, but we started taking on so much water,” Barker said. “The sea state was in a fairly short chop and I think that was factor along with the strong breeze and also the spectator wash, we certainly haven’t encountered a problem like that in any of the other sailing we have done so it was a bit of shock to us to have the leeward side full of water after only eight or nine minutes of sailing. We certainly have never experienced that before.”

The amount of water on board NZL-82 was shocking to most observers. Syndicate head Tom Schnackenberg and skipper Dean Barker eventually estimated that there was as much as six tonnes of water swilling around in the cockpit. Pitman Matt Mitchell was assigned a bucket to try and bail it out, but he was fighting a losing battle.

“Initially we got a couple of waves over in the pre-start, but once we started racing it was coming in over the leeward side,” Barker said. “As fast as they were bailing…the water was coming in faster than that.”

That amount of water soon turned a 25 tonne boat into a 30 tonne boat and in the strong wind, the boat was loaded up much more than usual.

Team New Zealand started losing ground to Alinghi and was forced to tack away. When Barker tacked back to close in on the Swiss team, the aft end of the carbon fibre boom broke under the strain. Team New Zealand had now lost control over the foot of the mainsail, and in the big breeze, the sail assumed a dangerously full shape.

Soon after that, as NZL-82 crested a wave, the titanium tack ring that holds the bottom forward corner of the genoa to the deck exploded. The sail was wrenched out of the luff track, and the day was over for Team New Zealand.

“I guess for us, we don’t for any stretch of the imagination think we are out of the event just because we have had a bad day,” Barker said. “Yes, its is disappointing for us…but I think we came off the line pretty much close to even, even in the short time that we sailed each other and that is reassuring because we haven’t raced against another team…tomorrow is another day and we believe we are in a position to go out and race these guys and give them a run for their money so we are looking forward to tomorrow and the rest of the event and we will see what happens.”

What cannot be overlooked is the vast difference in sailing time between SUI-64 and NZL-82. The Swiss boat is the second oldest in the fleet of new generation boats, while Team New Zealand’s black boat is the newest. In fact, Team New Zealand has sailed NZL-82 for just four months, while Alinghi has been putting SUI-64 through its paces longer than any team, for well over a year. The inevitable question is has Team New Zealand sailed enough?

“We have a boat that we’re very happy with,” Schnackenberg insists. “What we have to do is take a very good look at all the assumptions we made in engineering and the boys will be having a very good look around everything in the boat, not only features in the design but also to see if there is any damage that occurred because of the damage that did occur. We think we will be fine but we are not taking it lightly.”

Pictures of NZL-82 from helicopters over the race course showed the water collecting in what appeared to be a type of well behind the mainsheet traveller. There is some speculation along the docks that the boat is designed to hold a bit of sea water in that part of the cockpit to help the back end sit lower in the water, and that in the unusual seaway, it all went horribly wrong.

It’s a truism of all types of sailing that strong winds expose weakness. The question to be answered over the next few days is, was today an aberration or is Team New Zealand in trouble?

We’ll receive at least a partial answer in 24 hours time.

Source: Event press