Shore detail

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What's life like here for the families of the America's Cup contenders and officials? MAGGIE BLAKE talks to some temporary Aucklanders.

All the furniture in their rented house is borrowed. Their car is hired. And they communicate by cellphone. It sounds like camping in suburbia. But this Danish family, living in Parnell for the duration of the America's Cup, don't see it like that at all. They have slotted into the local community and they feel right at home.

Soren Krause is an obstetrician and gynaecologist back in Copenhagen. Here he is a member of the jury-umpire team, overseeing foreign contenders for the America's Cup title as they go through their preliminary battles for supremacy.

To support him in his five-month sojourn, he brought along his wife Pia Elvstrom, a film production manager and daughter of world famous yachtsman Paul Elvstrom, and their two daughters Katrine, aged 10 and Kamille, aged 8. The two girls spoke no English when they arrived. At first their mother acted as their daily interpreter at Parnell Primary School as they struggled with the new language.

After only five weeks of hard work, the kids were able to understand their teachers and cope on their own.

"The school has been fantastic," says Elvstrom. "They have backed us up and had a positive attitude to everything. We have made lots of friends and that is due to the school," says Elvstrom. "Everyone has been extremely open and helpful."

On the seventh floor of The Heritage Hotel in central Auckland live Daniela Grassi and her husband Sandro Montefusco, who is here as Prada's mainsail trimmer.

The Italian couple share a roomy apartment with their three children, Michele, aged 7, Nicolo, 5 and Caterina, five weeks, plus such family essentials as a bike, skateboard, pram and pushchair.

Their baby daughter was born at National Women's Hospital 10 days before Christmas. Grassi decided to have her baby here instead of back in Italy, so that the family could celebrate Christmas and New Year together. Home for them is Lecce, a town set in "the heel of the boot" in southern Italy, where Grassi and her husband both work as sailmakers.

Here the two boys attend Bayfield Primary School with other Prada kids. And during the school holidays, their mother takes them off in their Honda Civic to beaches and parks - providing the weather is good enough. Every evening, the family eats an Italian-style evening meal at the hotel's Prada restaurant.

As for having a baby far from home, she says in careful English: "When I stay here I feel very comfortable and happy.

"I love this country ... so I feel like a New Zealand citizen."

American Heather Pike has also made Auckland her home for the duration of the America's Cup. She had been married for barely two months when she and her new husband, Buster, moved here.

They arrived in August 1997 to work for the America's Cup Challenge Association, leaving behind a car packed with wedding presents, locked in a storage unit on Rhode Island.

At first it took a long time to shop for groceries - puzzling over unknown brands. Some of the foods she wanted for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner were impossible to find. There were no white onions available for her creamed onion recipe. Nor the right sort of marshmallows.

Nevertheless, Pike quickly adjusted to life as an Aucklander. She is a keen rider and managed to acquire two horses, which she regularly exercised until her workload escalated as preliminary America's Cup racing began. "I never thought in a million years that I would be able to have horses," says Pike.

So what else will she miss, when she returns to America after spending 30 months living in Auckland? She is sorry to leave behind fizzy Berocca tablets, fancy lettuces, green-lipped mussels and rich, creamy milk.

Fellow American Betty Schreiber came here with her sailmaker husband, Mike, and their two sons Jason, aged 13 and Matt, 10, as part of the America True syndicate. The family quickly settled into a furnished rented house in Devonport and the boys enrolled at local schools.

It was difficult to synchronise their studies with the different New Zealand school year, however. And they did not get nearly as much homework as they would have back home in Oregon.

"It's been hard to get them to take their school work seriously," says Schreiber.

True is out of the race now but the Schriebers have stuck around, despite the lure of snowboarding at home. She appreciates living in a relatively safe environment here. "I don't feel bad if they are walking down the street alone," she says. "It gives them a chance to explore a new place a bit on their own. I think they have grown a lot since we've been here."

Back home in Italy Monica Plazzi is a contemporary dancer. Here, as wife of Prada navigator Matteo Plazzi, she is enjoying "a big rest."

The couple simply closed the door on their townhouse in historic Ravenna to make the move to Auckland. Here they live in a suite at The Heritage and eat every night with the Prada team, though occasionally they throw a private dinner party in their own rooms, serving pasta to their guests on a banqueting table covered with a bright orange cloth.

Their minimal Christmas decorations are still up in their suite - green and red paper bells and a mini tree hanging from the fire sprinklers.

On race days, Monica Plazzi is always out on the harbour watching Luna Rossa compete. In between times she loves to shop - though she much prefers Italy's retail hours, where shops shut for a long siesta in the middle of the day and then stay open later at night.

"I am being very lazy in this period and I am becoming lazier and lazier."