Kiwi sailors and supporters

Kiwi sailors and supporters have held a moving on-the-water ceremony to pay respects to the Pike River miners at the Louis Vuitton trophy in Dubai
Team New Zealand sailors wore black armbands during fleet racing and sailed with the ensign at half mast. The Italian boat Mascalzone Latino, which has Kiwi Gavin Brady as skipper, also had its ensign at half mast.
Almost 50 of the 100 sailors in Dubai are New Zealanders, so before the semi-finals began a seven boat flotilla headed out to lay a wreath at sea.
Team New Zealand boss Grant Dalton says it is a huge tragedy for New Zealand and the team wanted to pay tribute.
"It's what we can do to support them and to show that we watch and we care."
The ceremony began with a mihi paying tribute to the 29 followed by a tribute from the New Zealand consulate general Wayne Mikkelson.
"We think of those men as they went to work as they or we would any other day fare welling their wives and girlfriends their children, not contemplating the unthinkable that lay ahead...our sympathies go to the families of those miners," said Mikkelson.
All 29 names of the miners were then read out before the wreath was slipped into the sea.ZC0106denise