Yachting: Let's get on with it, says Dalton

Team NZ have wrung nearly all the speed they can out of NZL82, which races Team Shosholoza and K-Challenge tonight. Picture / Kenny Rodger

TRAPANI - Team New Zealand managing director Grant Dalton says his team's objectives remain unchanged for the year's final two America's Cup pre-regattas, which start in Sicily tonight.

The six-day match-racing regatta, in which Emirates Team New Zealand is up against Team Shosholoza and K-Challenge in the opening races in Trapani tonight, will be followed by a three-day fleet racing starting on October 7.

Winning their starts and first crosses and seamless crew changes rate highly on Team New Zealand's wish-list, while the never-ending hunt for speed continues to a lesser degree now they have extracted virtually all the pep they can out of NZL82.

"This is probably a regatta ... we do not need," Dalton said. "We are sort of in place where we want to go on and get on with it again by ourselves.

"Yes, we'll continue our afterguard development and our crew work and our weather and all these things, but in many ways we kind of know where we are at, so we'd rather just get on with it."

In their last match-racing regatta in Malmo they had three losses (against +39, Oracle and Alinghi), although two might have been avoided had Team NZ not been over the start line against +39 and torn their jib sheet against Oracle.

Whether they can beat Alinghi and their rocketship SUI75 is another matter. The boat is unbeaten this year and with its ability in a range of conditions, it could stay that way.

The Swiss syndicate will use their third helmsman, with American Ed Baird taking over from Jochen Schuemann, who steered in the Sweden regattas, and Peter Holmberg, who helmed at Valencia.

With three Italian teams - Luna Rossa, Mascalzone Latino and +39 - the decision to stage the regattas in Italy seems to have been worthwhile.

Already, it would seem, every resident of Trapani has ventured down to the America's Cup Park.

Italy first challenged in 1983 with Azzura and has twice made it to the America's Cup match, first with Raul Gardini's Il Moro di Venezia in 1992 and again in 2000 with Prada.

Conditions in the Mediterranean are expected to be light and possibly shifty for the first few days. But the wind can create choppy seas.

In other crew changes, BMW Oracle Racing have welcomed Peter Isler back to the afterguard, where it is expected he will be joined by helmsman and skipper Chris Dickson, tactician Bertrand Pace and strategist Eric Doyle.

Veteran round-the-world sailor Dee Smith has joined South Africa's Team Shosholoza for the regatta. .