Yachting: Huff and a puff - Kiwis in the know

Thanks to an Australian meteorologist known as Cloud, New Zealand's sailors already know what winds will be blowing at the start of the Olympic regatta.

Roger Badham has lined up predictions for the Athens coast two weeks out, giving the squad the chance to prepare in advance.

Team manager Don Cowie said from the team base yesterday that Athens had two prevalent weather conditions, each suiting some sailors better than others.

"Our guy is forecasting that we are going to have the sea breeze-type of situation [to open the regatta]," he said.

"That's probably the trickier conditions of what we get here.

"You end up with an offshore breeze in the morning which is quite light, a calm period around lunchtime, then a nice sea breeze of about 12 knots at two or three in the afternoon."

He likened the light sea breezes to the type of summer sailing found off Napier.

Offshore winds are the other option, one which would better suit the likes of America's Cup skipper Dean Barker in the Finn class, and Laser sailor Hamish Pepper.

"When it blows offshore here ... that is very much like sailing off Takapuna in a south-westerly. It's very shifty and puffy, and quite fresh," Cowie said.

"That's where a lot of tactics are involved and people such as Dean and Hamish are quite smart - that may suit them better."

Sea breezes were likely to be more to the taste of Sharon Ferris and her Yngling crew, or Europe sailor Sarah Macky, Cowie said.

"It will be just how it pans out on the day - that's what the Olympics is all about really."

Cowie, who won a silver medal at Barcelona in the Star class, was disappointed New Zealand was not represented in every Olympic class.

New Zealand will not have crews in the Star or Tornado classes.

While it was impossible to predict definite medals, Cowie said New Zealand had a strong team with good prospects.

"The people we have here ... on the right day at the right time and everything going right for them, they could all win medals.

"I think it is important that they realise they are legends just for having got here. To compete in an Olympic Games is an awesome feat for these guys."

While the likes of Mistral sailors Thomas Ashley and Barbara Kendall - who already has three Olympic medals to her name - and Macky rated highly, there could also be upsets.

The men's and women's 470 crews had been sailing well with good boat speed, Cowie said.

"It's all what happens on the day for those guys."

Pepper recently finished fourth at the world championships and Barker turned in a good fourth in the European championships.

Cowie said the weather would be very different to the Sydney Olympics, where only Kendall mastered the conditions.

Macky was one expected to fare better in the Greek breezes than she did in Sydney, where she was ninth in light airs.

Cowie said the team had bonded well and had no immediate problems.

"At the moment I don't have any real concerns with any of them, I think they are all seasoned campaigners, they have pretty much got their campaigns under control.

"I'm touching wood, because there might be some stone that we haven't turned over that might have a crab underneath.

"The only thing that is probably worrying me at the moment is we're having trouble getting our laundry done."

Success would depend on how well the team coped with problems when they inevitably cropped up, he said.

"There will be plenty of things that will go wrong.

"We have just got to make sure that as a support team we can turn those bad things into silver linings and make sure the competitors don't get too stressed about them."

Badham helped Grant Dalton on his winning round-the-world campaign in 2001.

- NZPA