PRESS CONFERENCE QUOTES

Saturday, 26 February 2000

Francesco de Angelis, Skipper of Luna Rossa, on Team New Zealand's performance: "I think they are making almost no mistakes and in a race like today for instance, there were no passing lanes. It is hard to pass them once they are ahead."

Francesco de Angelis, on boat speed comparisons with Team New Zealand: "I'm happy with our boat speed. For sure, they are not slower than us!"

Brad Butterworth, Tactician of Team New Zealand, on start tactics: "The call from our team was to start to the right of Prada. In the pre-start the wind did actually shift left which biased the pin. But we thought it was going to go right again so we were happy to start where we did and it worked out just fine."

Craig Monk, Grinder for Team New Zealand, on possible crew rotations: "It has always been a policy for us to bring a younger crew on and it wouldn't be surprising if we did see some rotations in the next few races so, yeah, definitely it could happen. It is Russell's call. We haven't heard yet, but maybe."

Brad Butterworth, on today's race: "Today I thought that if the roles (at the start) had been reversed, there would have probably been a different winner. We had a nice little lead at the top mark and downwind it was very close. They were sort of coming in, but all you had to do was get around that bottom mark ahead. The left was quite favoured. I'm not sure how far ahead we were - 19 seconds or something like that - but instantly the boats tacked it turned into 30 seconds. The breeze came in from the left and the left was favoured and it would have been really difficult to pass if you were behind and that's the way we read it today."

Mike Drummond, Navigator of Team New Zealand, on the torn gennaker: "It just seemed like it got caught on the sheet clip when we gybed. Fortunately it was in the foot. The foot cord didn't break so the sail held together. But it was a little bit of an awkward time for us because we didn't really have enough time to change it and get a genoa up and go around the bottom mark. We had a few discussions onboard at the time as to what the best thing to do was, but fortunately it didn't break."

Torben Grael, Tactician of Luna Rossa, on Team New Zealand: "Well first of all we have sailed against them much less than we have sailed against all the other competitors we had in the Louis Vuitton Cup. At the beginning of the Louis Vuitton Cup, everybody was more conservative and trying to assess their boat speed and everything, and then it got more aggressive at the end. We have been having problems on the start in the America's Cup but I think that can go either way. They have a more experienced crew on the starts and that's an advantage that they have. There's nothing we can do about it but it doesn't mean they cannot make mistakes. We are going to keep trying to do good starts and I think with good starts we can also have a different attitude on the first leg instead of always being in the defensive position."

Torben Grael, on choice of side at the start: "We were planning to be on port tack as soon as possible after the start. We couldn't get the right side of Team New Zealand on the start and there was a big left after the start. So we had to go on port as soon as possible and they were defending that side. We were trying to make the best out of it."

Brad Butterworth, on a possible generation gap between the two boats: "It would be hard to say that. I think there are a lot of good ideas on both boats. We for sure have been looking very closely at the Luna Rossa, at a lot of the ideas that they've got. We would certainly like to try a few of them and I would say that they are looking at our boat thinking the same way. But there doesn't seem to be a hell of a lot in it, we have managed to get ahead in the three races and when we've got ahead I think we've done a good job in making sure the other boat stays behind. Especially today, it was a tough day to pass, and I definitely wouldn't call the boats generations apart."

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