A depleted New Zealand crew have been off the pace on the opening day of the SailGP regatta in Plymouth.
Photo: Supplied
Without half a dozen Olympic sailors, including Peter Burling and Blair Tuke, the New Zealand SailGP team have finished sixth, sixth and fourth in the first three fleet races.
They finished the opening day in fifth overall.
Interim driver Arnaud Psarofaghis says they "are in the mix".
"We did improve a lot throughout the day and we are pushing really hard to be ahead of our opponents," Psarofaghis said.
"We had good speed, good manoeuvres and we just had great fun out there today. I hope tomorrow it's going to be a little bit windier so we can have some better races."
Photo: Supplied
Interim wing trimmer Jason Saunders said they improved their manoeuvres over the course of three races.
"We had the opportunity to have some better results if we'd nailed a couple more manoeuvres and that just comes with the fact that we are a newer team and we're going to make some mistakes but we certainly put the boat in some good positions and I think tomorrow if we execute what we executed in that last race we should be in good shape," Saunders said.
Defending champions, the Australia SailGP Team, resumed their impressive form after a disappointing regatta in Italy to dominate the first two races before finishing seventh in the third race as Jimmy Spithill's USA SailGP Team clinched first place to end the day at the top of the leaderboard on 19 points.
The Spain SailGP Team, with New Zealand driver Phil Robertson, became the first team in SailGP to receive a black flag, sailing's equivalent of a red card in football, after a dramatic pre-start infringement in the final race of the day.