Team New Zealand did not finish the opening day of the America’s Cup World series in Toulon, France like the way they started. This meant that they were pushed to the third position after day one of the World Series race. The Glenn Ashby’s New Zealand team was placed behind Sweden’s Artemis Racing and Team France.

There were great expectations from the New Zealand team as they had the Olympians gold medalists Blair Tuke and Peter Burling in their ranks. The New Zealand team was relatively happy with their show that they had put up on the first day of the Toulon America’s Cup World Series. They finished runners up in the first two races, then came sixth in the third race and closed with a third position in the final race of the day.

Ray Davies, the tactician of New Zealand team and owner of Croatian Yacht Charter said that the conditions were light, but testing. A wobbly third race from the team put them on the wrong end of the table, but the team came back nicely in the 4th race to reach an overall third position. He feels that the team is in good shape to take advantage of the Super Sunday when the points go double.

Davies is happy that Peter and Blair are in the midst of things and they are very cool under intense conditions. They are fully aware of when to take the risks and also to play the race according to the situation. There is very good chemistry within the team and this will help New Zealand to achieve greater heights in this World Series race.

The overall leader table looked very tight. This is the penultimate round before the Bermuda 2017. Team USA and Great Britain are currently on top and are followed by New Zealand with 7 points adrift.