The young New Zealand men's four survived the cut-throat nature of repechage rowing on Tuesday night (NZT) to qualify for their semifinal at the world championships in Poland on Wedensday night.
Needing a top-three finish to advance to the Thursday semis, Jade Uru, Simon Watson, Hamish Burson and Tyson Williams finished strongly to win a four-way duel involving Greece, France and Ukraine.
The four boats were even throughout most of a tense journey before the world under-23 champion New Zealanders surged to record the quickest time of the two repechage heats in six minutes 18.68 seconds.
They were the third quickest crew overall on Monday but were unlucky to be in the fastest heat, finishing behind Australia and Germany, with only the top two crews going straight to the semis.
Nine of the 11 New Zealand crews have now qualified for the semifinals.
The other two are in repechage action on Thursday - the women's quadruple sculls and the men's lightweight four.
Four: NEW ZEALAND (Jade Uru, Simon Watson, Hamish Burson, Tyson Williams) 6min 18.68 1, Greece 6:19.03 2, Belarus 6:19.11 3.
