Toyota dockside in Bermuda: What we've learned from round one of the America's Cup

Artemis Racing and Emirates Team New Zealand compete during the America's Cup qualifying. Photo / Gilles Martin-Raget

The end of round robin one. Everyone has now sailed against each other. What have we learned? Lots. In fact an enormous amount. It hurts the brain trying to absorb it all.

Getting to grips with the technical aspects of these flying machines is extremely taxing and the dreaded learning curve is only going to get steeper as the regatta progresses.

As we get into the racing routine the first lesson of the day is delivered at a media briefing by Regatta Race Director Iain Murray and Chief Umpire Richard Slater who review the previous day's action and preview the racing to come and answer questions.

Today it emerged that Emirates Team New Zealand had "the highest bottom end speed'. Confused? Understandably. What it means is that during a turn the Kiwi boat apparently loses the least speed. Sounds good until the talk turns to trade-offs. For Kiwi fans it's probably best then just to enjoy it being good.

We also learned more about the ever-increasing accuracy of the tools the Umpires have at their disposal to aid their decision making. For instance when the Kiwi boat was penalised for entering the start box early against the Brits, the margin of error was just 0.7 seconds. And the machine which tells the Umpires that is accurate to within 4 cms.

Other queries raised by Kiwis - keen to be in the know to avoid another crushing disappointment - concerned the time limits for a race. So, the boats must reach the bottom mark gate within ten minutes of the start and the race must be completed within 25 minutes.

Those are nice simple uncomplicated facts which are easy to absorb. Less easy to grasp are the seemingly endless permutations on how the yachts are set up or "moded".

The technical director for Emirates Team New Zealand is Dan Bernasconi who guides the configuration in which Aotearoa is set up every day to match the expected wind conditions.

This involves choosing the right mixture of foils and rudders and appears to be a far from exact science in that the boffins are still learning so much from every outing.

Because apart from being a point-scoring form guide on the road to qualification in the Louis Vuitton Cup, the round robins are also an experimental testing and proving ground for all manner of ideas and equipment.

Bernasconi is adamant that the Kiwi boat is going to get faster but then he's equally adamant the opposition will too.

Talk about a hard row to hoe. But this is a man who holds a PhD in Mathematical Modelling and Aerodynamics, backed up by a Masters from Cambridge University. He also spent six years working with the McLaren Formula 1 team so clearly knows shedloads about performance optimisation.

And that is maybe the key to success in this America's Cup, working out which is the optimum set up from the vast array of options that continue to emerge.

They've been saying all along that the learning isn't going to stop and it's certainly proving to be the case.