Pratt at the back

James Boyd was 17th man on GBR41 during the British America's Cup team's first competitive outing

It comes as a considerable privilege for this journalist to have been invited to sail with Peter Harrison's GBR Challenge on their first ever competitive race. At the America's Cup Jubilee regatta, there is the magnificent spectacle of the Js and the classics in the western Solent and the vast array of 12 metres of all ages in the central Solent. Beyond Bembridge and into Hayling Bay, in fact so far away it almost seemed not to be part of the Jubilee was the racing for the America's Cup Class yachts.

Due to the strong conditions racing was cancelled for the ACC boats yesterday, so today was the first occasion Peter Harrison's supreme team has had to line up against any of the likely challengers they will come across when the Louis Vuitton Cup kicks off in October 2002.

As a first time visitor to the GBR Challenge base in Cowes I was overwhelmed by the size of the facility. The 9.5 acres site on the west bank of the Medina River once belonged to Red Funnel and Harrison bought it from a firm of Japanese venture capitalists who also own Battersea Power Station. In this area there are five sheds one of which houses sail loft, another a gym, another was the location where the decks were modified and another where construction will begin on GBR Challenge's new AAC boat this November ready for a April 2002 launch. Around the compound there is also what seems to be a reasonably high degree of security, with card access to mant areas of their many admin and training facility.

It is 0830 in the morning and GBR Challenge's General Manager, Dave Barnes is giving me a lift to their base. We have just come from the Royal Yacht Squadron where he is alongside Dennis Conner, John Bertrand and Russell Coutts at a photo call for 'America's Cup personalities' with the America's Cup. Considering all the hype surrounding the two boats taking part in the America's Cup Challenge GBR41 and GBR52 have already left. Hayling Bay is at least an hour's tow from Cowes, although it is more convenient for the remainder of the ACC boats based in Portsmouth Harbour. A 14m beast of a RIB, complete with three Yamaha V6 outboards, a raised seating area and canopy is awaiting us and several crew members including Andy Green, Will I'Anson, Simon Fry, Mal Parker and Ian Budgen are there too waiting to go out. One of the more interesting characters is a young Scottish blonde who it transpires is Fiona Campbell, GBR Challenge's meteorologist. There is a singular lack of old crusties in this campaign. The RIB is laden with sails, a new mainsail, spinnaker and a spare spinnaker pole, the crew sprawled over them.

We catch up with the boats are they are nearing the race area. Already the competition is lurking around. Their form basically falls into age order. The hot prospects are Prada's Luna Rossa, the Italian red flyer which failed to catch the Kiwis in the last America's Cup and GBR Challenge's GBR52, formerly Nippon Challenge's Idaten also built for the last Cup, but never raced in it. Then there are the generation of boats from the Cup before - this includes Team New Zealand's winner of that event, the all black NZL32 and GBR Challenge's GBR41, another Nippon Challenge boat. There are the first generation boats from the first Cup - historically the most significant are the two Cup boats from 1992, Bill Koch's America3 and Il Moro de Venezia V campaigned by the late Raul Gardini, now also in Koch's possession. Then there is John Caulcutt with High Voltage, formerly Chris Dickson's TAG Heuer and France 2, now owned by yacht charter company Sunsail.

The boats race as a fleet until Friday when the top four begin a match race series. Friday's racing will produce two finallists, hopefully one of them GBR52.