Many breathed a sigh of relief yesterday after Team New Zealand blitzed Luna Rossa at the start of the opening race of the America’s Cup.
But former coach and America’s Cup winner Murray Jones wasn’t as easily impressed.
“I actually thought they would have come out a bit stronger than they did in the start so that really disappointed me most out of the day,” Murray said.
Jones thought Luna Rossa actually let the Kiwis off at the start, but did not make the same mistake in the second race, where they beat Team New Zealand off the line and held on for a narrow victory as the Kiwis floundered.
“They really sort of screwed up with 45 seconds to go [in the pre-start],” Jones said of Team New Zealand.
“They were well up above [the start box] and didn't come down and push early enough, and when they did come and push they came at such a downwind angle that they didn’t have speed.”
Team New Zealand were late to the line, causing an outburst of frustration in their communications.
“All the pre-start is all really irrelevant until the last push at the end and we just mis-executed that so we can and we have reviewed that a lot,” flight controller Blair Tuke told 1 NEWS.
“I don’t think how we started yesterday will win us the America's Cup, we have to do better than that but we're comfortable with where we're at.”
The starts are proving critical in determining the race winner, second only to speed.
Jones believes the Kiwis undoubtedly have the latter.
Even though they lost the second race, they spent most of it sailing in dirty air, and still gained on the Italians.
But Jones said the mistakes Team New Zealand made had been seen before in the Challenger Series, and he suggested the Kiwis should have taken more learned more while they watched on from the sidelines.
Racing resumes tomorrow at 4.15pm with coverage starting on TVNZ1 and TVNZ On Demand from 3pm.
SHARE ME