America's Cup - Rod Davis returns to sharpen Kiwi Match-racing skills
by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com NZ on 15 Dec 2016
Rod Davis has rejoined Team New Zealand in a match race coaching role Emirates Team New Zealand
http://www.etnzblog.com
Long time Team New Zealand coach Rod Davis has rejoined Emirates Team New Zealand as Match Race Coach as the team transitions from testing to training in the coming months in preparation for America's Cup racing in Bermuda starting on May 27, 2017.
Davis left Emirates Team New Zealand in August 2014, after ten years with the team, saying that it was time for a change.
The Olympic Gold and Silver medalist joined the second time America's Cup Challenger Artemis Racing in a coaching role.
His involvement with the America’s Cup now extends for 12 campaigns, beginning at the age of 21 years as bowman on the 12 Metre Enterprise in the 1977 US Defense Trials, until the Lowell North skippered entry was excused from further participation in selection trials by the New York Yacht Club.
Since then he has competed in every America’s Cup, except the 2010 Deed of Gift Match, usually as a helmsman or coach.
Davis joined Emirates Team NZ in 2004, when Dalton wanted, 'what he called some grey hair', to provide knowledge, experience and mentoring to the sailing team after the 2003 Cup Defeat.
In the last few America's Cup World Series the Emirates Team NZ crew have been caught out badly by the experienced match racing skippers - Ben Ainslie (Land Rover BAR) and Jimmy Spithill (Oracle Team USA), costing the team places and often penalties at crucial stages of the racing.
Oracle Team USA have long used the services of Philippe Presti, a former Finn sailor turned match racer, who claimed in the 34th America's Cup to have analyzed then Kiwi skipper Dean Barker's moves to the point where they were entirely predictable, and as the series progressed the Kiwis paid a heavy penalty in the start box.
While Emirates Team NZ's tactician Ray Davies is an experienced match racer, few of the crew have any depth of match racing experience, and it is expected that Davis will tasked with teaching the basics and then honing the instinctive reactions
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