Team New Zealand hope to have key strategist Adam Beashel back on the water by the middle of next month.
Beashel caught his hand in the mainsheet block during the fleet racing regatta and stripped all the flesh off his index finger. He has had three operations onhis finger and remains in hospital.
Team New Zealand skipper Dean Barker said the loss of Beashel was a setback. "Adam is a very key member of the team. He has been there right since the beginning of this campaign and was a key part of the last one. He has been instrumental in the way the afterguard has developed.
"To have done all of this work all the way through and to find himself on a forced break is very tough on him."
Replacing Beashel is the American Mark Mendelblatt, who joined the team in October. Mendelblatt sailed with the OneWorld Challenge in 2003. He has made a name for himself in dinghies, winning the European Championship in 2006 and the Star Bacardi Cup in 2005. He was an Olympian in the Laser in 2004 and also second that year in the Laser World Championships.
"He has fitted in incredibly well. He is a very talented sailor in his own right," Barker said.
"He is doing a really good job to learn the position and make it a seamless transition."
Emirates Team New Zealand's sailing and operations manager, Kevin Shoebridge, said Beashel was always an injury risk being a strategist, a job which required him to go up the mast.
"It is just unfortunate that the only time he wasn't swinging around up the mast he got hurt while he was on the deck," Shoebridge said. "He is a hard nut and I think we will see him back."
