Desperate Kiwis look to Pace to add speed

There were mixed feelings here about the replacement of the home-grown tactician Hamish Pepper with the Frenchman Bertrand Pace by the America's Cup defender Team New Zealand going into today's fourth race. Even Pace himself had his misgivings and telephoned an old sailing colleague for counsel.

The Frenchman feared there might be adverse reaction to the move within the team, but he was soon reassured that he would not have been offered the post unless the rest of the team was in agreement. After all, it was pointed out, while the Kiwi skipper Dean Barker and Pepper have sailed together since childhood, it was Barker who invited Pace to join the team three years ago.

The task facing Pace was a daunting one, with the Russell Coutts-skippered Alinghi leading the Kiwis by 3-0 overnight and needing only two more victories to lift the Auld Mug for Switzerland. Himself a former skipper for Team New Zealand, Coutts had sailed a perfect series to take that impressive lead, aided by his regular tactician and friend Brad Butterworth. It has been the quiet observations from Butterworth that have been seen as the key to Alinghi's success.

In addition, the use of the triple Olympic gold medallist Jochen Schumann as strategist, working alongside Ernesto Bertarelli, the Alinghi team owner and navigator, brought a new dimension to the afterguard of an America's Cup challenger. Schumann's remit is to oversee the game plan, taking note of where Butterworth wants to go and counselling him with the big picture. It proved a dynamite combination.

Against that, Team New Zealand struggled - even with its celebrated "hula", the appendage that everyone believed would be the "silver bullet" to make the boat a tad faster. On the evidence of the first three races it did not: the two boats were almost identical in speed upwind and down, with the tactical superiority of the Swiss proving decisive.

All round, a big ask for Pace - and for Team New Zealand.