KEY POINTS:
Grant Dalton unravels a picture of NZL84 sailing down the Waitemata Harbour with its giant red spinnaker billowing out.
The photograph with Auckland city in the background was taken on Tuesday, the team's final day of sailing in home waters.
Dalton says he will take it to Valencia and hang it over his bed - a reminder of where his team has come from and where it hopes to return with yachting's greatest prize.
But winning the America's Cup is something Dalton can't think about, let alone talk about at the moment. With 56 days until the start of the challenger series, Dalton says he and his team have to live in the now.
We are sitting in Dalton's office in Team New Zealand's Auckland base. On one wall is a picture of Sir Peter Blake during Team New Zealand's homecoming parade in 1995. On the other is a much larger, brightly coloured yacht painted by Dalton's young son Mack.
Out the window his team are busily packing up the black boats NZL84 and NZL92, which will be loaded on to a Russian Antonov and flown to Valencia on Wednesday.
Although the syndicate is in transit Dalton's office is, as usual, immaculately tidy. His desk is so shiny that you can almost see your own reflection in the wood.
"That is not tidy," he exclaims. "Look at my filing cabinet."
He flings open a drawer which reveals about four files.
"That is my files for three years. I threw them all out. I hate clutter. I cannot work in a mess, it absolutely drives me crazy if my car is not clean, if my life is not completely organised.
"It is compulsive disorder, almost. If you are messy I think you are going to make mistakes because you miss things."
This is Dalton's first real America's Cup. He was part of the New Zealand challenge in Fremantle in 1987 but failed to make the sailing team under Chris Dickson, something which he has said "destroyed" him at the time but has given him motivation over the years.
He went on to compete in six and win two round-the-world races and complete a 62-day sprint around the planet as skipper of Club Med.
Dalton, now Emirates Team New Zealand's managing director, says he often draws on his round-the-world experiences, even if just recently his America's Cup team probably wished he hadn't.
"Every time you do a round-the-world race and something smashes and you are lying on your side for the 50,000th time in the Southern Ocean getting a flogging ... you say 'God, why didn't I just go out in the Hauraki Gulf, put a spinnaker up, turn the boat on its side and lay there until something broke'."
So Dalton did. One of Team New Zealand's 24-tonne America's Cup boats was taken out to the Hauraki Gulf, loaded up and heeled over so its mast was almost running parallel to the water.
"It was as funny as hell. All the America's Cup guys were face down ... going 'Jesus, what's next'. All the round-the-world guys were walking around ... like it is just another bad watch.
"It was tempting after the first spinnaker blew to go 'that's it, she's right, let's go in'. But we stayed and did it again and again for about three hours. Four spinnakers later we had enough information and came in. It was pretty radical for the America's Cup," he says, grinning away.
Renowned for his no-nonsense attitude and preference to call things how he sees them, Dalton is reluctant to talk about himself. This is, after all, a team sport.
"I can't win the America's Cup. The guys can. I can't and they are doing it. The guys are starting to stand up and that is the key now. Me standing up is not going to help."
This is not entirely correct. Dalton does, after all, sail on the race boat, which is not unusual for a syndicate head. What is unusual is that he has one of the worst jobs aboard.
A floater, Dalton does a bit of grinding but most of the time is in the boat's sewer packing sails. He loves it.
As he explains what he does on board, his eyes light up, his sentences speed up and he can recall virtually every move he makes during a race. "It is seriously cool to sail on a boat with guys at that level ... and be able to because I couldn't do what they do. I couldn't do what [helmsman] Dean [Barker] does, or what [tactician] Terry [Hutchinson] or [navigator] Kevin [Hall] or [strategist] Ray [Davies] does.
"It is an honour almost to be among them in that capacity. If I thought I couldn't do that job, I'd take myself off in a heartbeat. If I get overtired, physically or mentally, I'll take myself off the boat."
Dalton is 50 this year.
"Scary, eh. Wait, you'll be 50 one day," he laughs. "You just don't feel any different. I think like I did when I was 24. I think exactly the same. Every time you look in the mirror you think 'Jesus, who is that old prick looking back at me?"'
Although this Team New Zealand syndicate is significantly older than the last one, Dalton says he never has any trouble blending in with his younger teammates. It shows. The flak he gives them comes right back.
"They might see me as an old bugger now," he says. "I don't have trouble with the age gap. I have done everything those guys have ever done. I hope they never feel that it is no more than a guy that is working with them and who wants to achieve on the water just like they want to achieve."
Dalton is an extremely hard worker. When his team are arriving at the gym at 6.30am he has completed his workout and is heading to his office. He likes to be at his desk by 7.
He is always on the phone. Always. It would be easier if the thing was attached to his ear. His ring tone is AC/DC's Thunderstruck and is so loud that if he left his phone in the base he could probably hear it from the middle of the Hauraki Gulf.
He is big on note-taking, carrying a pen and paper with him everywhere.
"If I am at home watching telly I have a little pad beside me and I make notes, if I am sitting at traffic lights I make notes ... you are always conscious of it, it never leaves you."
He is a worrier.
"In this job you should be. I worry a bit about everything. You don't worry when you are leading, you worry about how people will respond when you are behind. I worry about reliability, I worry about losing soft races.
"What I don't worry about is the attitude of the guys towards the task. I think we are in a position now where we can go the distance physically and mentally."
For advice Dalton has a small circle of people he turns to. In that group are Team New Zealand directors Gary Paykel and Jim Farmer, Toyota boss Bob Field and his longtime friend and sailing manager at Team NZ, Kevin Shoebridge.
"I speak to Dean [Barker] a lot if I am like 'Jesus, this is getting me down' or I have run out of gas and it is time to pump me up. I talk to those guys."
He has the undivided support of his wife Nicki and three children, Eloise, Mack and Olivia, who will join him in Valencia.
"With Nicki I am really lucky that she understands, she gets it. She has always got it. She was there when we were living in a container [in 1987] - I can't believe we used to live in a metal container.
"It is a sacrifice for her because I am never around much. She has a sporting heart so she understands what we are doing. She understands it can only be done at 110 per cent. She understands when there is a choice between family and work. Through this period it will always be work that wins.
"If it is a family crisis then of course family crisis wins, but if it is working on Saturday when Olivia needs to be taken to a birthday party at Lollipops it will get organised and I won't even know it has happened.
"I won't have to say to Nicki 'you have got to take her because I have to go and do something else'. She just organises it. She understands."
Whatever the outcome in Valencia, Dalton is not sure what his future holds.
"I haven't decided if I will stay. Maybe I'll get swept along at the end of it but I definitely haven't decided. I am really still interested in the round-the-world race. That is where my roots are. I am probably not too old ... yet."
