Auckland diary

Nigel Cherrie looks at the line up for the CORM Race Committee trials that start tomorrow

After a long season, it is almost the end of term for the America's Cup community. Just before some teams return to the northern hemisphere for a short break, to launch their new yachts or continue training in their national waters, there are a few opportunities for assessment of form.

Tomorrow (Saturday) the CORM Race Committee trails - an unofficial week long regatta for the challengers - gets underway. Five of the six teams currently sailing in Auckland will use courses laid on by the Challenger of Record Management Group to line up against their neighbours.

But nothing is ever simple in the America's Cup. Even this is running into controversy and the mud has started flying. Sweden's Victory Challenge will be the only active challenger not taking part and they seem disgruntled that another syndicate seem to have denied them the opportunity.

It appears that the other challengers, one European team in particular, felt their 1995-generation yacht, the old NZL-38, would be too slow, defeating any value in racing them.

"We do not want to sail with Orn (SWE-68), as every challenger has agreed to sail their old boats. Our wish was to be loyal to that decision. We are confident that NZL-38, would have been a competitive boat in the regatta," explained Mats Johansson, Victory's project manager and skipper.

As a new team on a steep learning curve, the Swedes seemed happy evaluating their performance against the defenders during the international regatta.

Surely the benefits of match racing Orn against the major league challengers would outweigh what information they could give away, bearing in mind they have already been on display to the world once?

The Victory team will stay in the City of Sails until early June before returning to the Nordic countries for six weeks. During that time their second 2003 boat (SWE-73) will be packed on a container ship bound for New Zealand.

Magnus Holmberg, currently number one on the Swedish Match Tour and in the world rankings, will be steering their entry in the Steinlager Line 7 Cup grade one event in March.

Prada will field two yachts next week, Luna Rossa (ITA-48) and one of the two Farr designed Young America yachts (USA- 58) they acquired from the last New York Yacht Club Challenge. Franceso de Angelis will steer one, Rod Davis the other. The Italians aim to shut up shop in New Zealand a week after the CORM event and return to Punta Ala on the Mediterranean coast.

It will be early May before on-water training resumes as their IACC yachts have to make the long haul to Tuscany by ship. Soon afterwards they will launch the new Luna Rossa (ITA-74), the first of their two new steeds, which is being built at the Prada boatyard in Grosseto, Italy.

Two match-racing teams (helmed by Davies and Gavin Brady) will stay on for the grade one match-racing regatta. Prada are non-committal about their return date to New Zealand in the autumn as they say, "a lot still depends on the schedule of the second Luna Rossa".

But while a number of syndicates are new challengers, Prada has been in almost continuous operation since the end of the last Cup and are now relative veterans. "Once you have one America's Cup to your credit, you have a better understanding of how things work," said a team spokesperson.

The US OneWorld Challenge only has one training yacht left, the former America True (USA-51). They recently sold their second yacht, the old Stars & Stripes (USA-55) to the Mascalzone Latino Challenge from Italy. The team indicted they will revolve the helmsman duty for the CORM event between Sailing Director Peter Gilmour and young gun James Spithill.

OneWorld, like Oracle, are non-committal about their summer training plans. With Chris Dickson now sidelined, it looks like Peter Holmberg will take the helm of the single Oracle yacht tomorrow and will do the same for Oracle's Steinlager Line 7 Cup entry.

Alinghi will of course sail their 2000-generation boat, SUI-59, next week. She was the teams' first yacht and was once known as (the hapless) "Be Happy", the Swiss entry in the last Louis Vuitton Cup.

Alinghi removed the double keel that made her famous and returned her to a more conventional shape for testing alongside their new yacht SUI-64.

In a recent interview with madfor sailing, Coutts outlined his crew selection philosophy and this may be an ideal dress rehearsal for him to evaluate afterguard options.

The Swiss aim to stay in New Zealand until the start of the challenger trials but will not be drawn on the 'where and when' launch details of their second 2003 generation yacht.

And to the Poms. They will be there and squeezing the opportunity for every ounce and inch of experience it is worth. No crew line-ups have been confirmed.

Finally, any diehards that are keen to know the results of the CORM event - there will be none.

One of the conditions of entry stipulated by some of the larger challengers is that there is a pro-active media blackout. No one wants photographs, video or information from the event to reach the defenders.