We present a new construction for sequences in the finite abelian group Cr n without zero-sum subsequences of length n, for odd n. This construction improves the maximal known cardinality of such sequences for r > 4 and leads to simpler examples for r > 2. Moreover we explore a link to ternary affine caps and prove that the size of the second largest complete caps in AG(5, 3) is 42. Keywords zero-sum sequences, finite abelian groups, affine caps. AMS classification[2000] 11B50, 20K01, 51E22