Team New Zealand update - Day 1 at San Francisco

Emirates Team New Zealand update - Day 1 at San Francisco

October 3 2012

Emirates Team New Zealand won its match race qualifier at San Francisco today to go through to the quarter-finals.

On a cold, foggy Wednesday afternoon Dean Barker and crew – Adam Beashel, James Dagg, Ray Davies and Derek Saward – won the start and led to the finish.

The winning margin was 51s.

Six match racing qualifiers were held to decide which teams went through to the quarter finals. Which will be held on Thursday and Friday. At times during the afternoon, the yachts disappeared into the fog.

Wing trimmer Adam Beashel said: "Conditions were just marginally on the top end with the strong ebb tide kicking in, so it was a little bit bumpy, but a pretty good ride really.

"By the time it came for us to race, we were ready to get into it and enjoyed a good clean race. Luckily we led from the start and followed with some solid boat handling right around the track to maintain our lead and get away with a victory."

For Grant Dalton it was a good day, too: "Just one race and they sailed a really neat race, tidy.It was quite windy so there was plenty of opportunity, but I thought it was nicely controlled."

Results:

Team Korea beat Luna Rossa Piranha by 1s

Energy beat China by 56s

Emirates Team New Zealand beat Artemis Red by 51s

BAR (Ben Ainslie) beat Luna Rossa Swordfish by 1.15s

China beat Luna Rossa Piranha by 10s

Artemis Red beat Luna Rossa Swordfish by 22s

Artemis Red beat China by default
warren.douglas@emiratesteamnz.com

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