Peter Lester: Alinghi's highway to success: preparation

You would never say never, but boy, is it a steep hill now - a huge hill.

The America's Cup might be out of their grasp, being brutal, but you bet these boys are going to want to race today.

What they would be asking is, "Give us something that is reliable, that we can get round the track with".

Reliability comes from attention to detail and preparation.

In the end you have to acknowledge that the Alinghi team are better.

It all comes down to preparation, preparation, preparation.

Team New Zealand admitted two weeks ago - the first time the boat filled with water - that NZL82 had not been pushed in these difficult conditions.

That's hugely critical. The score-card reads 4-0, and two of those losses have been because the boat's broken down.

Gear breakages can be attributed to your preparation, sailing in those sort of conditions. Why the water comes on board, I don't know. But again that's testing and preparation.

Alinghi's been out practising in those conditions.

The feature has to be how reliable and how well-prepared Alinghi are. Their boat has been the most reliable boat in the Louis Vuitton Cup and the America's Cup.

However, if you take away yesterday's breakage, the bottom line is that Team New Zealand were beaten anyway.

The starting has been a major weakness.

The critical bit is that it appeared the left hand was the favoured side and they were on the right, but then they were three-quarters of a boat length behind off the line.

Russell Coutts nailed it for Alinghi and Team New Zealand were 18 to 20 metres off.

This comes back to the team on the water.

The priority has to be to get off the line bow to bow. Why can't we even get the boat off the line?

Coutts is a master of time on distance. He was within a metre of the line at the gun yesterday, going flat out in those conditions.

At this level, that's what you have to be able to do consistently.

The sailors also have a role in preparation. The Team New Zealand boat did not look as comfortable in those conditions yesterday.

Part of the preparation curve is the shore crew, the designers, the engineers. But in the end you have to test thoroughly on the water.

* Peter Lester is Yachting New Zealand's high-performance manager.

Continuous coverage of today's America's Cup race will begin on nzherald.co.nz at 12.30pm.

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