Team New Zealand opened their account at a pre-America's Cup yachting regatta with two comfortable wins in Valencia, Spain, today.
NZL 84 had a cushion of two minutes 32 seconds over Germany then followed up with a 1min 44sec win over South Africa.
Last year's regattas showed that there wouldbe no easy matches but the day turned out to be a gentle re-introduction to America's Cup match racing for skipper Dean Barker and his crew.
Much of the interest was in the performance of the new yachts -- NZL 84, BMW Oracle's USA 87 and Luna Rossa's ITA 86 -- and all three returned to the dock with two wins.
The first race of the day was sailed in a shifty light easterly that never got much above eight knots, and in the afternoon the breeze built a little to 10 knots.
The first race against Team Germany had some jittery moments when the sail dropped to the water as the spinnaker was being raised for the first time, but the crew quickly recovered.
In the light conditions NZL 84 showed some good upwind speed, having a margin of 58sec at the top mark.
On the second upwind leg NZL 84 increased the margin by 52sec, then added only another 2sec on the first downwind leg due to the spinnaker troubles.
In the second race NZL 84 totally dominated the pre-start against Shosholoza's RSA 83, a new generation yacht which the team campaigned last year.
NZL 84 quickly established a 200m lead by working the left of the course, and at the first top mark NZL 84 were ahead by 47sec.
