New Zealand secured three more finals berths, and their first medal, on the fifth day of the world rowing championships on Lake Karapiro near Hamilton today.
As expected, Hamish Bond and Eric Murray eased through to Saturday's final in the pair, while Mahe Drysdale overcame a disrupted start to win his single sculls semifinal and target his fifth world title on Saturday.
The youthful men's eight built on their outstanding form to secure a berth in Sunday's final with a second place in their repechage seeing them through, while single sculler Emma Twigg held on to take third in her semifinal to secure New Zealand's 12th final spot.
And adaptive single sculler Danny McBride held on for bronze in five minutes, 33.39 seconds, the race won in 5min 19.36sec by Briton Tom Aggar ahead of Andrii Kryvchun (Ukraine) in 5min 32.67sec.
Bond and Murray's 10-race winning streak over the British pair of Pete Reed and Andrew Triggs-Hodge was extended to 11 in today's semifinal, although neither crew looked too concerned about pushing hard.
Bond and Murray eased through the first 500m in fourth place, then maintained an even pace for the second quarter to move into first place, .25sec ahead of their British rivals.
The two crews then cruised through the last half of the race, the New Zealanders crossing first in a leisurely 6min 50.88sec, well clear of the second-placed Britons in 6min 57.43sec.
The New Zealanders had gone considerably faster on Monday when they led from start to finish for a 6min 25.12sec heats victory, while the British combination had upped the tempo in winning their heat in 6min 21.90sec.
Bowman Murray was laconic in his post-race assessment: "We've gone out to win every race we're in and today was no exception. We just wanted to see what would come out of it - we're not really taking a hell of a lot out of it.
"The British gave it a good nudge in that first part of the race and so did the Italians and from there, we were the first three crews and I think they backed off a little bit through that last part of the race."
With the final just two days away, Murray said most crews were careful not to push any harder than was strictly necessary.
"There's no point, if you've got a good lead, putting in that 100 percent and having a wind-up over the line, so we just held the rhythm we'd created through the second 500m, we carried that through.
"If you get a lead there's no point in upping it and trying to keep going. You just hold what you've created."
Twigg, who finished her heat on Monday with a second-placed 7min 26.29, had a similar luxury today in her semifinal. Up against defending champion Ekaterina Karsten (Belarus) , Twigg needed a top-three finish to make the final, and she rowed a steady race to finish third in 8min 15.64sec, eight seconds behind Karsten in first, with Czech Mirka Knapkova second in 8min 09.51sec.
"My first aim was to make sure of the top three," Twigg said afterwards. "I knew Karsten and Knapkova were quality scullers, so I was extremely happy with the result in the end."
Come Saturday, however, Twigg was confident of pushing the favourites: "Anyone's beatable and that's what we train for. I firmly believe Karsten is beatable. I've got the home support, so I'm going to go out there and give it absolutely everything on Saturday."
The men's eight provided more excitement, the big boat powering through to second place in today's repechage to become the first New Zealand eight to make a world championship final in 19 years.
The New Zealanders were third with 500m to go, headed by the United States and Canada, but unleashed another superb sprint finish to seal second place in 5min 39.08sec to the Americans' winning 5min 38.48sec with Canada fading to a third-placed 5min 42.58sec.
