Nautor Challenge yachts christened

madforsailing reports from Puerto Cervo, Sardinia

The decision over which boat to take will prove a hard one for Dalton. "We will take a technical decision not an emotional one like we did last time," commented Dalton adding that a mistake they made with the Merit Cup campaign four years ago was testing two boats only in the Mediterranean. As a result of this they'd chosen the narrower boat - Farr had also recommended this - and it proved to be slower, compared to the beamier high stability boats. It may prove that the more powerful, fuller hull shape of the Frers boat is great reaching and upwind and while the Farr boat is better all round in lighter conditions. In this case Dalton says it will be a case of returning to the weather models to see which boat will be the more successful.

The Amer Sport boats are fitted with a sophisticated telemetry system and they are currently bound for Sansenxo on the north coast of Spain over the next few days as they make their way to their new training base in the north of Spain, they will begin the lengthy process of accumulating the polars for both boats. Then once enough data has been recorded and analysed Dalton will make the call on which boat is faster. This will be the boat he and the male team will be campaigning in the race.

Dalton is also worried that they may get scooped on technology like they did last time when Paul Cayard's EF had so much success with their Code Zeros, a point he still shows some bitterness over. "Code Zeros came out of the sun at us. They were illegal then and they're still illegal."

He is also keen that his boat shows pace on the shorter legs and feels that in Roger Nilson, Dee Smith and Boewe Bekking their campaign has a 'strong back end'. "We need to nail the short legs. I see illbruck with a strong back end. But otherwise I don't see anything which frightens us at the back end of the other boats."