Pratt at the back

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

GBR Challenge's giant RIB bumps into GBR41 and we clamber on. Julia Harrison-Lee, Peter Harrison's daughter and I are on board as the '17th and 18kth men' - during the regatta these are reserved spots for media and VIPs. Neal McDonald is also there with his new cropped blonde locks and on his final run with GBR Challenge before leaving to join Volvo Ocean Race team Assa Abloy.

Olympic rower Greg Searle is being allowed a spot on the helm while the boats are being towed. Then there is the beefy form of Ian Walker's Star crew Mark Covell, a man unquestionably built for grinding, Jim Turner once upon a time Fireball World Championship and now a leading match racer and Soling sailor and match racer Richard Sydenham. Guy Barron, a rarity being a British sailor with recent America's Cup experience is there in a training capacity. In fact it transpires that Barron helped build GBR41 when he was part of the Nippon team. I am struck by how this is a British team, but almost everyone speaks with a Australian twang to their accents.

We pootle along until Ed Danby, Neal McDonald's fellow Club Med crew and now GBR Challenge shore manager, arrives followed by what McDonald refers to as 'the grown ups': Andy Beadsworth, who will be on the helm and the talented but intense Derek Clark tactician and 'brains trust' on board. Leading Farr 40 skipper Mark Heeley arrives with them as guest 'spotter'.

ACC boats are like no other. This beast is around 75ft long and weighs around 25 tonnes around 75% of which is lead in the bottom of the keel. When it comes to ballast ratio, there are few boats to beat them.

Aft of the mast our ACC boat all cockpit with a small coaming around their perimeter just wide enough for mounting a few winches. Like other modern Cup boats she has the port primary winch loading the 'wrong' way (ie anticlockwise). The winches are driven by four coffee grinders.

There are two carbon wheels, with an inner wheel to steer the trim tab on the aft end of the keel. But the port wheel and trim tab control are off when I get on board. This is so that the mainsail (which has yet to arrive by RIB) can be laid along the deck while it is put on. The mainsail is even flaked so that it can be bent on from the port side. Although they give the impression of being completely open day boats in fact our ACC yacht has a sail bin in the bow and a locker beneath the aft deck.

Beadsworth gives a briefing - two rounds of windward-leewards, mustn't make mistakes, motivation - followed by Clark's analysis of the weather and the tide, backed up by some intricate maps produced by Fiona Campbell. Julia Harrison-Lee and I settle on the aft deck to view the proceedings. It transpires that she is a trained lawyer and in many ways her father's strong right arm. She is a Director of GBR Challenge and also a Director of the Challenger of Record Management Group. This I am told is a considerable coup for GBR Challenge as it indicates the America's Cup community views them as a serious long term player and also allows them to be at the coal face when it comes to making decisions about the Louis Vuitton series.