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The Daily Sail spoke to America's Cup veteran Peter Isler about his time on the Red Hornet

Peter Isler was part of the afterguard on Dennis Conner's Stars & Stripes team in Auckland and was also involved in the campaign's test program.

"Personally I had a great time. I learned a lot and really enjoyed the group of people Dennis put together. We are all immensely disappointed that we didn’t performance as well as we all hoped and wanted to but sometimes it is out of your control too. You can’t judge success solely on your performance.

Despite having more funds and a much better program than they had with Stars & Stripes in 2000, Isler feels that they suffered because the game had been raised and their set-backs on the way to Auckland were more dramatic than some of the other challengers.

"Although we had a bigger budget and a two boat campaign we also started later than the teams which ended up doing better than us," he says. "The budget we had wasn't huge and we couldn’t start as early as them and time is such an important X factor in an AC campaign.

"If everything goes perfectly then we had enough time. But Murphy’s Law is such that nothing goes according to plan and everyone broke some masts and had some rudder problems...and we sunk our boat."

This was a major set-back, but at the time the team remained positive. "For a weird reason we thought it is going to be okay because we could get down to Auckland with a great boat but we didn’t want to risk losing 66 too by entering a team race with the other teams. So we didn’t 'check in' and you talk to some of the guys on the other teams and those early informal races were very very important in the decisions they made preparing for round robin 1.

"So the boat sinking indirectly prevented us from sailing against other teams and that was a big disadvatange."

They had also planned to use September for their two boat practising, but because USA-77 was still out of action at this stage, that was also not possible. Isler says that going into the Louis Vuitton Challenger series they felt about a round robin behind everyone else.

In his opinion the America's Cup has not seen the last of Dennis Conner. "I know he'll try. Dennis loves the Cup and it’s his business. He's very disappointed that he can't tell potential sponsors and supporters where the venue is because that is so key. His forte is that he doesn’t have the money so he has to sell it and there are elements that it is impossible to sell until you know where the venue is. So right now he is in fundraising mode and somewhat stalled out until he knows where the venue is."

He believes that the Cup coming to Europe is a good thing. "The Cup has thrived every time it has changed venues. The Cup seems to like change, so I think it’ll be great probably in ways we can’t even predict now."

If it does go to Lisbon/Cascais Isler says it will be amazing. "It’ll be windy. I remember a 470 Worlds when I coached there. It smoked - big waves."

Since Auckland Isler has rejoined Brack Duker's Farr 40 team on Revolution and most recently filled in for his old college room mate Stan Honey in the navigator's spot on board Pyewacket in the Transpac.

At the time of our interview he was contemplating taking part in the Etchells Worlds this September in Connecticut.

He says he enjoys sailing a diverse selection of boats. "I like the balance. I remember when I stopped match racing and started fleet racing again in the Etchells it was like rediscovering fleet raccing and then I got back into match racing. I come from this liberal arts background that enjoys flitting around between boats, partially because you learn so much in different kinds of boats and I’ve always been fortunate to do everything from dinghy sailing to offshore racing with enough skills to get on good boats and I'm not really ready to call off any of those. Saying that, I have the most fun when I am steering my own boat and it is my own campaign."