Camper Emirates Team New Zealand retained second place on the Volvo Ocean Race on Saturday despite a disappointing result in the 106-mile sprint from the United Arab Emirates to Sharjah.
As happened in the reverse leg a week ago, the field finished within minutes of each other and Abu Dhabi took the lead from Telefonica only two miles from the finish.
Camper starting strongly and was second behind Telefonica as the fleet rounded the last mark out of Abu Dhabi. However the superior boat speed of Abu Dhabi, Groupama and Puma allowed them to overtake the New Zealanders.
Skipper Chris Nicholson was not happy.
"It is certainly not the result we were looking for and the reality is that we were left wanting for speed on the reach.
"We made some changes to the boat and by our numbers we were actually going better than we were on the race into Abu Dhabi from Sharjah but clearly still not enough to hang onto the others.
"Now we need to go back to the drawing board and see what else we can do to improve our reaching speed.
"We were much better once things broadened out and we could crack sheets further but at that stage it just wasn't enough to haul the leaders in," he said.
Nicholson said the team just had to bide their time. There would be more upwind on the next stage of the leg and they were comfortable with that. They would have to keep chipping away at areas of weakness, he said.
"We've got to keep things in context though, this is just a small part of Leg 3 and the vast majority of it, distance and points wise, lies ahead of us. We now have a lot of homework in regard to the weather geographical obstacles that we will face in the 4000 odd miles from the safe haven to Sanya.
"I don't think the next stage will be won by boat speed, it will be won by being smart and keeping the boat in one piece and going the right way," he said.
Racing to Sanya will resume on January 23.