America's Cup: Team NZ not the only syndicate experiencing reliability issues

Team New Zealand boss Grant Dalton admits he is frustrated at the latest setbacks to hit the team. Photo/Jason Oxenham.

Team New Zealand aren't the only America's Cup syndicate to be dealing with late setbacks and gear damage as racing in Bermuda draws near.

While yesterday's collision between the Kiwi boat and Ben Ainslie Racing captured much of the headlines, Team NZ boss Grant Dalton told Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking several other teams had mishaps during practice racing.

In a week where they had rudder issues and then a costly accident to limit their opportunities for precious time on the water as the cup clock counts down, Dalton told admitted there "has been a bit of frustration for us".

But he suggested that it was a "bigger deal" externally than internally where as a team "you earned to roll with the punches".

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

— EmiratesTeamNZ (@EmiratesTeamNZ) May 17, 2017

"You don't look for it, but you're right on the edge with these things," he said.

"You run this ragged edge between the need for reliability - because it doesn't matter how fast you are, if you don't finish you're not going to win - and being fast enough, so everybody is trying to judge it ight to the second almost. It's easy now and again to step over the line, and that's what happened the other day - we stepped over the line."

Dalton pointed out defender Oracle Team USA and Swedish team Artemis, who have set the pace through practice racing, also experienced some issues yesterday.

"Two other boats, both Artemis and Oracle didn't finish the day - both limped home under their chase boats. Oracle had their wing smashed, and Artemis had an issue we couldn't tell from a distance."

Given the number of incidents that have occurred in the lead-up to the regatta, Dalton expects there will continue to be gear damage and reliability issues when racing proper starts.

"These boats are right on the edge and it could come down to who can actually keep it together."

"Anything can happen all the way through. You would hope that you'd learnt them and they would settle down but these things are so responsive to innovation and change that you can't stop - and really you can argue that we stopped too early in San Francisco and that would be a fair point.