KEY POINTS:
The stocky man wearing holey, ripped jeans and a cap pulled low over his eyes goes unnoticed as Imagine, the gleaming blue super yacht used by Team New Zealand for VIP hospitality in Valencia, backs into the dock.
As the day's guests, happy on fine wine, a gourmet lunch and an Emirates Team New Zealand win, step off the stern, the man disappears quickly behind a stack of containers.
He could be mistaken for the maintenance guy heading home for the day. But that's the way Swiss-Italian millionaire businessman Matteo de Nora likes it.
Just minutes earlier he was sitting outside the near-deserted team base, talking animatedly about America's Cup rules, Grant Dalton, what Alinghi might be up to with its canted keel and the tensions between the hard-nosed Larry Ellison and equally hard-nosed Chris Dickson.
De Nora had spent the afternoon explaining how he, a man with business interests all over the world and a home in Monte Carlo, came to fall in love with Team New Zealand's "story". How he forked out millions of dollars and persuaded a syndicate of other wealthy America's Cup fans to do the same to make sure Team New Zealand could pay its bills. How his family fuel-cell company, Gruppo de Nora, secretly spent two years developing lightweight batteries to power the electronics on the black boats, giving them a weight/speed advantage.
In fact, there is nothing scruffy about de Nora. His loafers are fine, soft leather and the ripped jeans are distressed Diesels. It's when his immaculate 34m sloop Imagine motors slowly into view that de Nora tenses. He covers his grey team New Zealand T-shirt with a tan jacket, wraps a black scarf round his neck, and says it's time to go.
He does not mean to be rude. He's just not the sociable type, doesn't like crowds of people, is not one to beam with pride and ask Imagine's guests if they've had a great day. Of course, he hopes they did. But he's not staying around to find out.
Imagine and de Nora have been a major part of Team New Zealand since 2003, when de Nora, a keen sailor, was watching Team New Zealand take on Alinghi. He sat appalled, with the rest of New Zealand, as the black boat began taking on water and broke its boom in the first race. During the fourth race, he witnessed the heart-breaking crack as NZL-82's mast broke, sparking the "This f***** boat" comment from an unknown sailor on board.
De Nora probably said something similar in one of the many languages he speaks.
"I hated it when the mast broke. I knew they were better than that."
It was at that stage he knew he could do something to help.
He shrugs off the money he has put in, won't be specific about the amount - one suspects he doesn't really know what it's cost him - and says the money is not the point.
Later, de Nora acknowledges that his contribution is in the "millions" but nothing like the reported $20 million figure.
He steers the conversation to the syndicate of 30 similarly wealthy people who, like him, believed in Team New Zealand. They contributed far more than he did, he says. Half were New Zealanders, the other half foreigners who owned property in New Zealand or foreigners with no connection at all. But without de Nora, that syndicate backing would not exist. And despite $34 million from the New Zealand Government and sponsorship from Emirates, the 2007 challenge would not have happened without the syndicate to fund the balance of the $120 million needed to mount a decent challenge.
It was de Nora who, after the disastrous 2003 campaign, when there was very little money or goodwill left, wrote the cheques for "$400,000 or $500,000" to keep Team New Zealand running and to pay the bills. Since then, wherever the black boats have been, de Nora and Imagine have been close at hand.
Kiwi-born skipper Richie Low, 35, has been Imagine's skipper for the six years de Nora has owned the yacht. He and the crew have sailed the sloop 260,000 nautical miles, much of it with the boss on board, to places like Antarctica, Alaska, Myanmar, the Philippines and Argentina.
And during the 13 Louis Vuitton regattas in Marseille (France), Malmo-Skane (Sweden), Trapani (Italy) and Valencia between September 2004 and last month, Imagine has been there.
In the early days, the luxurious sloop became a work boat, filling the part of a tender to carry a spare mast and booms when there was only one chase boat.
In Trapani, a trucking strike meant the black boats' two masts were marooned in Sicily with no time to load them on a boat bound for Valencia. It would have meant a six-week delay in Team New Zealand's training schedule, until de Nora, Low and Imagine's crew strapped the two towering masts on to Imagine's decks and sailed them themselves.
And in February this year, it was de Nora who helped organise and finance the freighting of NZL92, NZL84 and tonnes of rigging on a giant Antonov cargo plane from Auckland to Valencia. The marathon two-day trip, flown at low altitude in case pressure caused delamination of the hulls, gave Team New Zealand 23 extra days of sailing time.
De Nora sees himself as part of the team, with CEO Grant Dalton as his boss. The "billionaire playboy" label irritates him. Instead, he prefers to be seen as an extra set of hands, a trouble shooter. He talks to Dalton most days. If there's a problem he can help sort out, he'll do it.
He has enormous respect for Dalton who, he says, does not suffer from the "not invented here" syndrome. "He listens and he learns quickly."
De Nora, from one of Italy's most wealthy and successful families that made its money in chemicals, says he tries not to interfere, but he'd also hate not to be there if something went wrong. He is, he says, getting more out of his involvement with Team New Zealand than he gives.
Last month, his generosity and place in the team effort was acknowledged by a visiting pan-tribal group of Maori, who manned the taua waka (war canoe) which escorted NZL92 out on the first day of racing.
On board was de Nora, his pale European flesh a dead giveaway, despite his face being painted with a full moko. Earlier, as he lay on a boardwalk with his body draped in a Maori cloak for warmth, the warriors closed in around him and sang waiata to give him privacy from crowds of onlookers.
It is an experience which even now de Nora finds moving. He talks like a new convert about the hongi, the exchange of breath, about the song and the sound of the men chanting as they paddled.
And the fun. Dalton, Dean Barker and the rest aboard NZL92 did not know de Nora would be on board the waka, and he came in for some good-natured teasing.
So how did this Italian-Swiss businessman end up watching over Team New Zealand like a mother hen? The connection, he says, is sailing. If you love sailing - and he does - sooner or later you end up in New Zealand. Since de Nora has owned it, Imagine has been four and half times round the world. After Valencia, he's off again with an itinerary that will see him in the Pacific and New Zealand in the summer, with a visit to a holiday home in the Bay of Islands he rarely gets time to use.
As we walk around the base, passing staff call out, "Gidday, Matteo." He likes that, Kiwi boys who are polite. "They might like me, or they might not. But they always acknowledge me."
Later, we watch as NZL92 is towed back into the dock and the crew starts offloading the giant sails. It's heavy, awkward work, and Imagine's skipper Richie Low automatically goes over to lend a hand. De Nora likes to see that, too. His crew has integrated with Team New Zealand. He lives and breathes this fight for the America's Cup. He knows every inch of the Team New Zealand base and will talk for hours about America's Cup rules and tactics, and about what the opposition might be thinking and planning.
He's also undoubtedly charming. In the giant sail loft, he picks up a pair of scissors to cut a thin strip of red spinnaker cloth - a piece in the bin, not the bit attached to the boat. Carefully, he ties it round my wrist to make a bracelet. I am utterly charmed - until he drops into the conversation an hour later that he made the same gesture to Prime Minister Helen Clark when she visited the base last month.
Up in the loft, he shows the tiny batteries his company developed, easily held in the palm of your hand. By comparison, the giant boat batteries of old are difficult to lift off the floor. It's a technology breakthrough that has saved Team New Zealand around 32kg - representing something like a 10-second speed advantage. Yes, it's OK to talk about it now, says Dalton. There's no chance of the other teams being able to replicate the batteries at this stage, not unless de Nora jumps ship and sells them to a rival syndicate. The two men glance at each other and grin. They both know there's no chance of that happening.
As far as de Nora is concerned, this Team New Zealand is the best one the country has produced, and he has a contribution to make. He says simply: "I am an important part of the team. Everyone is important. If I was with Alinghi, I couldn't contribute. It's a one-man show. They have a huge organisation." To him, it's no contest. "I'd rather come third with Team New Zealand than first with Alinghi." But that, he adds, is not going to happen.
