Team NZ scraping the barrel to find more gains - Barker
Oracle has found another gear and "literally sailed around us" Emirates Team NZ skipper concedes - but doesn't give up.
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"That second race was pretty hard to take because they [Team Oracle USA] literally sailed around us. They just sailed away," Emirates Team NZ skipper Dean Barker told TVNZ after yesterday's second loss - which took the series to 8-8, setting the stage for a sudden-death showdown today.
"I think in those conditions - those 20-plus knot conditions - they've just found another gear," Mr Barker said.
"It's not ideal and it's going to be very hard for us to close that gap back down."
Oracle's boat got on it's foils faster upwind, and was around 2 knots faster.
Asked if Team NZ would make any changes to its boat overnight, the skipper replied, "Well, we feel like we've just about got every ounce of speed that we can out of this thing and we're definitely scraping the barrel to find terribly many more gains."
He added, "We're very upbeat and very confident we can win this thing. We just need a couple of things to fall our way."
NBR staff
Thu, 26 Sep 2013
Thu, 26 Sep 2013
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Team NZ scraping the barrel to find more gains - Barker
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