With the clock ticking down to the first race of the America's Cup, Emirates Team New Zealand have completed their first day on the water after repairs to their boat.
The Kiwis were hit by Land Rover BAR during practice racing, damaging the hull of their ACC catamaran. Despite spending four days off the water, grinder Blair Tuke says they didn't lose much time.
"Luckily the weather gods played in our favour a bit and there was no wind for those four days. The guys in the shed have done an amazing effort to not only fix the damage we had but also push the boat forward in a lot of other areas. That was really pleasing and we've had a great day out there today and made some gains forwards which is nice."
The Louis Vuitton Qualifiers get underway on Saturday, with Team New Zealand facing Groupama Team France in their opening round robin race. After only ten races one of the five challengers will be eliminated, and Tuke admits they need to be up to speed for the beginning.
"It's certainly getting towards what we've been looking forward to for such a long time now" Tuke said in a social media post from Team New Zealand.
"It's going to be tough from the first race right to the end so we have to keep pushing on, keep getting better and take it race by race. It's going to be a grind but everybody here in the whole team is ready for it. Just going to give it our best."
The Kiwis had some company with in the race village today with Swedish syndicate Artemis Racing moving into their operations base next door.
"It's good, it's the closest we've been to an AC50, obviously apart from the Ben Ainslie incident the other day."
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