After five years, millions of dollars, and 202 bruising boat races, the battle for the Americas Cup gets underway in Auckland tomorrow. Team New Zealand won the trophy off San Diego in 1995, while over the past few moths Italy's Prada Challenge, newcomers to Americas Cup racing, won the Louis Vuitton trophy after knocking out 10 other syndicates from six countries.
Tomorrow, New Zealand's NZL60 sails against Italy's Luna Rossa ITA45 in the first of a best-of-nine series for the cup.
Picking the winner is impossible. The boats have not raced each other. The skippers have different personalities. And the boats, while conforming to International Americas Cup Class rules, are also dissimilar.
Luna Rossa at least looked like the other yachts in the Louis Vuitton competition, but the NZL60 has a very different bow and the hefty bulb on its keel has wings in places others say it should not.
Officially, New Zealand has a campaign budget of 20 million US dollars and Prada $50 million, all from the pocket of Italian fashion king Patrizio Bertelli.
Prada has been battle-tested on the Hauraki Gulf off Auckland - NZL60 has only raced its older sister, NZL57.
Some Aucklanders have been rooting for the Italians, who have been two years in the City of the Sails. Prada's skipper, 39-yearold, 6ft 5in Francesco de Angelis from Naples, is a quiet, austere man with a seemingly wicked sense of humour and deeply ingrained superstitions.
He did not have a nautical childhood, and began his working life as an agricultural geneticist before coming late to sailing. He has done well, though, with five world sailing titles plus an Admiral's Cup. This is his first Americas Cup.
New Zealand is helmed by Olympic gold medallist Russell Coutts (37), who has been sailing and racing since childhood. His first taste of Americas Cup racing came in the 1987 challenge in Fremantle. He quit racing to finish his engineering degree and then went onto the world matchracing circuit. In the 1992 Americas Cup series, he was back-up helmsman to Rod Davis, and took charge in 1995.
On Monday, as required under race rules, the undersides of both boats were unveiled. Experts gathered to look earnestly at the bulbs and, in the case of NZL60, to look at the wings halfway along the side of the bulb. Most wings are placed at the rear of the bulb.
Obviously designers Laurie Davidson and Clay Oliver did not just take a punt and decide to whack on the wings somewhere new. But rival designers are puzzled by it all. Structural engineer Mike Drummond says the winglets inhibit the effect of water spiralling on a corkscrew off the bulb. The vortex, he believes, slows the boat.
Luna Rossa's bulb looks more conventional, although a little longer than usual.
NZL60's bow is different from others in its class and has a knuckle shape at the water-line. Plainly it has some role in water distribution, but what difference it will have against the more classically shaped Prada bow will only be known next week.
The consensus suggests NZL60 will do better in heavier air than Luna Rossa. But a problem for Team New Zealand has been strange weather. In the nine races of the just-completed Louis Vuitton finals, no day was the same - and crew work was a key factor. Now, it's Coutts against de Angelis.
