America's Cup: Grant Dalton says rival skipper Ben Ainslie 100% in the wrong over collision

Emirates Team New Zealand revealed the damage suffered after yesterday's collision. Photo / Emirates TNZ - Twitter

British skipper Ben Ainslie has admitted he "pushed the limits too far" in yesterday's pre-start collision with Team New Zealand.

Emirates Team New Zealand will likely miss the rest of this week's America's Cup practice racing as the shore crew put in massive hours to get the damaged Kiwi boat back out on the water.

The team's preparations for this month's America's Cup went from bad to worse yesterday, when they were rear-ended by Ainslie in a pre-start collision during practice racing.

The hull of the Kiwi boat was punctured during the incident - a setback the team could ill afford with racing set to get under way in the America's Cup qualifiers in nine days.

In a video released by Land Rover BAR today, Ainslie, who has endured a fierce backlash from sailing fans for causing the accident, admitted he got it wrong.

"We were trying to go for a final push on the line, and the gap just wasn't there. There's damage to both boats and that's not what any of us want at this stage, so certainly apologies from me. But you know that's part of racing - it happens."

"The weather at the moment is very light winds so hopefully Team NZ don't lose too much time out on the race course with their preparation."

Since the team returned to the dock yesterday, the Team NZ shore crew have been working around the clock to patch up the hull and are now in the process of putting the boat back together.

Team NZ boss Grant Dalton told Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking the team are unlikely to be back out on the water until Sunday.

"Since the collision yesterday the guys have been working straight. It's a pretty decent whack. In a perfect world you would replace the entire inside back of the boat in a new mould and make a whole new piece of boat, but we're not in that environment now - we've run out of time," said Dalton.

"They're putting it back together. It'll be fine, but we won't be back on the water until the weekend, so we're still a few days off being on the water."

While the boat is in the shed, the team have taken the opportunity to move a scheduled maintenance day forward to tomorrow to put in some planned upgrades.

Their time lost in the boat shed has been mitigated by the cancellation of today's third day of practice racing, due to a lack of wind on the Great Sound. The wind is also looking light for tomorrow's racing.

For the Kiwi team it was a good outcome to what has been a messy situation. But there remains a lingering sense of disappointment in the Kiwi camp over Ainslie's actions yesterday and the limp apology offered for his part in the collision. Ainslie jokingly described to the incident as a "love tap".

Dalton said he did not believe the actions of Ainslie were deliberate.

"Ben just mis-timed it, and he hit us. He was 100 per cent in the wrong and it's one of those things - it just doesn't normally happen in the warm-up lap," he told Newstalk ZB.

Team NZ posted an update of the progress of their repair work overnight, with the hashtag #ThanksBen.

Great day for practice racing today. Unfortunately #ETNZ wont be out there. #ThanksBen @AinslieBen pic.twitter.com/2BVH2T4Z9z

— EmiratesTeamNZ (@EmiratesTeamNZ) May 17, 2017