Cup rivals all good friends and jolly good company

By Suzanne McFadden

What has happened to the cloak-and-dagger secrecy of the America's Cup?

Contrary to the history of keeping Cup campaigns underwraps, Dawn Riley's mixed-gender America True crew and the Swiss Fast 2000 challenge team spent four hours training with each other in the Hauraki Gulf yesterday.

You see, necessity is the mother of invention.

While syndicates like Team New Zealand, Prada and Young America have two-boat training programmes, True and Fast have just one yacht apiece.

"We've agreed to race each other for a while. It's great to have someone else to train with," Riley said. "We've got nothing to hide at this point.

"This isn't our race boat, and the Swiss are sailing with a mishmash of equipment too."

So who won yesterday's racing? "We did pretty good, except for one messy spinnaker drop," Riley said.

The latest arrivals at the Cup village are taking very little time off over the festive period. The Swiss will sail again today, while the Americans take the next three days off.

Team New Zealand have locked up their base for a month, and the Italians have shut up shop - some going on holiday in New Zealand, others returning home.