By JULIE ASH
OneWorld's America's Cup campaign got off to the worst possible start yesterday when a mast broke on their training yacht USA-51.
Team New Zealand and the police went to the rescue and no one was hurt.
OneWorld director of sailing Peter Gilmour said it was fairly breezy, but nothing
out of the ordinary.
"We were out there in the gulf doing a bit of training and some fine-tuning on the mast when unfortunately it came down," he said.
"We lost a couple of the crew overboard but luckily no one was hurt. Team New Zealand came over to offer their assistance, which was very kind, as did the water police."
OneWorld acquired America True (USA-51) and Stars and Stripes (USA-55) after the last America's Cup regatta.
"Yesterday was the first time that we had both boats out there. We've had the USA-51 out but this was the first day for USA-55."
OneWorld are the first syndicate from Seattle to challenge for the America's Cup. They hope to have their cup boat, USA-65, in Auckland by March.
"We are pretty excited to be down here," Gilmour said. "We were looking forward to getting into our training programme, but these sort of things do happen and it is a setback for us.
"We have several masts so we'll have to start analysing what happened to this one."
The OneWorld syndicate is owned by telecommunications entrepreneur Craig McCaw and includes at least 15 New Zealanders.
Ten syndicates from seven countries have challenged for the America's Cup. Three of them are already in Auckland - OneWorld, The British Challenge and Prada - and the Swiss Alinghi Challenge and Oracle Racing from San Francisco are due on the water within a month.
The challengers will compete in an elimination series for the Louis Vuitton Cup, which starts in October 2002. The winners race Team New Zealand in February 2003.
Feature: America's Cup
Team NZ: who's in, who's out
