Sailing: Burling and crew keen to get going

Tauranga sailor Peter Burling leads the seven-man NZL Sailing Team with Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ) set to go up against nine other teams in the inaugural Red Bull Youth America's Cup on San Francisco Bay from September 1-4 - the window between the Louis Vuitton Challenger Series and the 34th America's Cup.

Burling's crew features three others from Tauranga in Laser sailors Sam Meech and Andy Maloney, plus Jason Saunders, who has switched from the men's 470 into the new Olympic multihull discipline.

They are all current Olympic class campaigners as is Burling's 49er crewman Blair Tuke. Jono Spurdle and Guy Endean round out the team, bringing match racing and keelboat racing experience to the group.

The Kiwis will sail AC45 catamarans on the same race track that their senior counterparts are competing on now. "It's awesome to finally watch them going around a course and showing what they can do, even if it's a bit of a one-sided affair," said 22-year-old Burling.

"You wouldn't have to be a bookie to have predicted the racing would be a little uneven in the Louis Vuitton Cup, but I'm sure the America's Cup will be tight and amazing to watch."

Burling says the format for racing will be different for the youth sailors. "We will be fleet racing not match racing, which means there will be 10 boats on the line instead of the one or two we have been watching."

The NZL Sailing Team with ETNZ will be in San Francisco from August 8 with a three-week lead-up period when practice, training, media and sponsorship commitments will keep all the teams entered in the Red Bull Youth America's Cup busy.

"We will get about 16 days to sail the AC45s in August before the racing gets under way. This should be plenty of time to iron out the creases in the boat handling and get used to sailing together as a crew," said Burling.

Racing will be over four days starting on Sunday September 1 in the AC45 catamarans used for the America's Cup World Series regattas. Every sailor in the Red Bull Youth America's Cup will be aged between 19 and 24 years, and 10 teams from eight countries have qualified.