New Zealand's rowers made their customary strong start to the third World Cup regatta at Lucerne today.

Duncan Grant continued where he left off and set the ball rolling for another good day on the water with a dominant heat win as racing began on the Rotsee in Lucerne. In a comfortable victory, only the Italian Lorenzo Bertini in the first heat was quicker overall - but once again Grant's speed looks ominous for the opposition.

Munich winners Rebecca Scown and Emma Feathery continued their good form with a comfortable win in their heat, beating a good field that included China, the two top United States crews and Bulgaria. The girls led all the way and maintained a comfortable clear water advantage for most of the race. They qualify directly for the A final.

Men's pair Eric Murray and Hamish Bond also made no mistake in their heat - absolutely dominating the race from the first 500 metre mark with a lead of almost four seconds. The race was something of a procession for the on form duo as they booked a prime lane for Sunday's final. Arch rivals Triggs Hodge and Reed of Great Britain also qualified with a comfortable win, some five seconds slower than the Kiwi pair.

Paula Twining and Anna Reymer will have to make the final through the repechage after a third place in their heat, but they saw off the British and the Danes in a heat dominated by the class German double of Thiele and Huth and the Bulgarians Neykova and Markova and certainly looked to have the speed needed in this field to make the A final via tomorrow's rep.

Nathan Cohen and Matthew Trott qualified for the semi finals with a heat win, tracking the Estonians and Slovenians until the 1600 metre mark where they upped the pace and moved ahead. The doubles field in significantly more competitive than in Munich, but Trott and Cohen still look to be comfortably at the sharp end of the field, along with the British, the French and the Germans.

Emma Twigg was another to continue a current run of form. The former Junior and Under-23 world champion, who was second in Munich and who dominated the Henley Royal Regatta, was a runaway winner in her heat of a packed field of scullers. Twigg and Belgian Annick De Decker went through to the semi final, with the rest of the heat pushed into the repechage. Four heats of top scullers will ensure the Hawkes Bay sculler gets an accurate yardstick as to where she sits in the overall picture with six weeks to go until the World Championships.

Mahe Drysdale won his heat with ease, with only Lassi Karonen offering anything like a challenge to the triple world champion and Olympic bronze medallist. The pace will certainly warm up in the semi finals, with the likes of Ondrej Synek and Olaf Tufte all looking for a way to topple Drysdale. Synek could be the danger man this weekend - Drysdale has beaten the rest of the field with effort to spare.

Lightweight double Storm Uru and Peter Taylor - another winning crew from the Munich World Cup - progressed to the semi finals in another competitive lightweight double sculls field after a solid performance in a field that included crews from Hungary, Korea, Poland and Greece.