Team NZ qualify top at Auckland regatta

Last updated 17:41 16/03/2010

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Team New Zealand has finished top qualifier in the Louis Vuitton Trophy yachting regatta off Auckland with a six-win, one-loss record in the round robin.

The top seeding sees them race against eight seeds Synergy (Russia) in the first elimination round tomorrow.

In a dress rehearsal of that match today, New Zealand beat Synergy by a minute in the final day of round robin racing,

The match was initially delayed by a soft and shifty breeze, which strengthened to a good 16 knots by the time the race started, but still made for tricky conditions.

Synergy got the better of the start and looked strong on the beat until Barker applied some pressure from behind and Synergy split rather than engage. That gave Barker the leverage he needed and when the yachts came together again, he was comfortably ahead.

Barker said Synergy's strong start had kept Team New Zealand working hard to stay in touch.

"Synergy did well in the start and got away fast. Our guys did a great job to keep it close up the beat.

"Then we threw a few tacks at them, forcing a split to the left. We got some leverage and crossed in front of them before the top mark."

From there, Team New Zealand maintained control, and sailed well to comfortably maintain their lead.

They rounded the first mark 26 seconds ahead, extended on the run to 38sec and by mark three was more than a minute in front, a margin that was maintained to the finish.

Gavin Brady, the New Zealand skipper of Mascalzone Latino was on a roll today, winning two races, including one against his Italian competition Azzurra. The strong finish saw his ream finish second overall with five wins behind Barker's six.

"It's a good place to be," Brady said. "It certainly gives you some advantages. But I've done so many match race regattas and the organisers get so creative and come up with these really unique formulas that I don't really understand.

"We are in second, but we're fighting it out and we've got two lives now."

The pairings for tomorrow's first elimination round are (seedings in brackets): Azzurra (4) v Artemis (5), All4One (3) v Team Origin (6), Mascalzone Latino (2) v Aleph (7), Team New Zealand (1) v Synergy (8).

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- NZPA