Emirates Team New Zealand Update - First Race Day at Cardiff

August 22 2014

Emirates Team New Zealand Update - First Race Day at Cardiff

Emirates Team New Zealand finished the first day of racing at the Cardiff Extreme Sailing Series regatta less than happy with their performance.

Skipper Dean Barker was feeling a little rusty having missed the previous two rounds of the 2014 series. A couple of bad starts and a few mistakes around the course added up to a seventh placing at the end of the day.

But it was not all gloom. A win in the seventh race of the nine sailed provided some valuable points to help launch a climb up the leaderboard over the remaining three days of competition.

Barker said: “We find ourselves with a bit of a deficit to the leading group but it’s early days and there will be a lot of opportunities to climb back.

“We are in a very positive frame of mind.Our speed is good and we’re sailing the boat pretty well around the course. We need better starts and we need to manage situations better when the opportunities arise.”

By the ninth and final race of the day, the breeze had built to the extent race management decided to remove guest racers from the back of the boat. At the top of the course, GAC Pindar collided with Groupama when rounding the mark, leaving both with a long night of repairs ahead.

Gusts of up to 20 knots are forecast for tomorrow’s racing.

Racing can be watched on-line live from 1530 BST / 1430 GMT (2.30am NZ time) www.extremesailingseries.com.

Cardiff standings after Day 1, 9 races (22.08.14)
1st J.P. Morgan BAR (GBR) 70 points.
2nd SAP Extreme Sailing Team (DEN) 62 points.
3rd Alinghi (SUI) 61 points.
4th The Wave, Muscat (OMA) 58 points.
5th Realteam by Realstone (SUI) 56 points.
6th Oman Air (OMA) 44 points.
7th Emirates Team New Zealand 37 points.
8th Red Bull Sailing Team (AUT) 33 points.
9th Groupama sailing team (FRA) 33 points.
10th Gazprom Team Russia (RUS) 26 points.
11th GAC Pindar (AUS) 21 points.

ENDS

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