NZL team eye comeback at Youth America's Cup

The NZL sailing Team endured a frustrating first day of the Red Bull Youth Americas Cup finals and will need to improve dramatically tomorrow if they are to defend the title they won in 2013.

The Kiwis went into the finals as one of the favourites but were left playing catch-up after the first race when they got caught in traffic and finished seventh of the eight boats.

Things didnt get much better as they copped a penalty for being over the line at the start of race two and they also picked up another penalty in the third race for interference on the boundary.

They recovered to work their way through the field in the final race to finish second, leaving the NZL Sailing Team fifth after the first day on 18 points.

Land Rover BAR Academy were in a strong position on 28 points at the top of the leaderboard after collecting a pair of seconds and a win and they hold a seven-point lead over Switzerlands Team Tilt and Team France Jeune in third.

Light and shifty winds of 7-10 knots made life difficult for chasing boats as the leading crews tended to clear out from the rest of the fleet. More breeze is forecast for tomorrow, which would be welcomed by the NZL Sailing Team who went into the final with high hopes after topping their group in qualifying last week.

"It was a tough day out there," skipper Logan Dunning Beck said. "It was really difficult to keep the boat going.

"The starts were brutal, with eight boats on the startline. We were getting tangled in the pack, who had their claws out, and we just couldnt climb our way through.

"We battled like that for two races and then finally cleaned up our act in the last race and managed to get some clearance off the rest of the fleet to come back from a pretty bad start to finish second.

"It looks like there will be wind again tomorrow so we will be racing for sure and we will be on the comeback. We will keep pushing tomorrow and hopefully Lady Luck will swing our way."

Three more races are scheduled tomorrow, with 10 points on offer for the winning boat. The NZL Sailing Team will need three top results and hope BAR finish back in the pack in a couple of races to have any hope of winning the Youth Americas Cup.

The Youth Americas Cup is for sailors aged 18-24 and was established to create a pathway to the Americas Cup. New Zealand won the inaugural event in San Francisco in 2013 and four members of that team - Peter Burling, Blair Tuke, Andy Maloney and Guy Endean - graduated to Emirates Team New Zealand.

Standings after the first three races in the finals of the Red Bull Youth Americas Cup in Bermuda today:

Land Rover BAR Academy (GBR) - 28 points

Team Tilt (SUI) - 21

Team France Jeune - 21

Artemis Youth Racing (SWE) - 20

NZL Sailing Team - 18

Team BDA (BER) - 18

Spanish Impulse - 15

SVB Team Germany - 14

Race One Results

TeamBDA (10pts)

Land Rover BAR Academy (9pts)

Spanish Impulse by IBEROSTAR (8pts)

Team France Jeune (7pts)

Team Tilt (SUI) (6pts)

Artemis Youth Racing (5pts)

NZL Sailing Team (4pts)

SVB Team Germany (3pts)

Race Two Results

Team France Jeune (10pts)

Land Rover BAR Academy (9pts)

Team Tilt (SUI) (8pts)

Artemis Youth Racing (7pts)

SVB Team Germany (6pts)

NZL Sailing Team (5pts)

Spanish Impulse by IBEROSTAR (4pts)

TeamBDA (3pts)

Race Three Results

Land Rover BAR Academy (10pts)

NZL Sailing Team (9pts)

Artemis Youth Racing (8pts)

Team Tilt (SUI) (7pts)

SVB Team Germany (6pts)

TeamBDA (5pts)

Team France Jeune (4pts)

Spanish Impulse by IBEROSTAR (3pts)

- This story has been automatically published using a media release from Yachting New Zealand