Yachting: Star skippers for matchracing regatta

Eight skippers fresh from America's Cup duty have returned to Auckland for next week's international matchracing regatta, the first leg of the new world series.

Among the star-studded fleet of 16 in the Steinlager-Line 7 Cup are former world champions Peter Gilmour, Chris Dickson and Bertrand Pace, and the new golden boy of world sailing, Kiwi Dean Barker.

Barker made his name a fortnight ago, taking over the helm of Black Magic in the final America's Cup race. He is one of two Team New Zealand skippers in the series, joined by promising 21-year-old Cameron Appleton.

Another Kiwi is Gavin Brady, former world No 2, who was the strategist in Paul Cayard's AmericaOne, the defeated Louis Vuitton Cup finalist.

Dennis Conner's navigator, Peter Holmberg, has stayed in town to compete in this first event of the Swedish Match Grand Prix series, while Australian skipper James Spithill, the youngest helmsman in the Cup regatta, has returned from Sydney.

But the favourites would have to be Frenchman Bertrand Pace, who skippered Le Defi Francis in the Louis Vuitton Cup and Australian Peter Gilmour, another former world matchracing champion, who will bring the core of his Nippon crew.

Of the others, Frenchman Luc Pillot, Dane Jes Gram Hansen, Swede Magnus Holmberg and Marcus Weiser, of Germany, are ranked, third, fifth, sixth and eighth in the world respectively. Joining them, and making a temporary return to matchracing in a break from an Olympic campaign, is veteran Kiwi skipper Chris Dickson, former matchracing world champion, and skipper of three America's Cup challengers.

The double-pool regatta begins on the Waitemata Harbour on Monday. Ten of the skippers will go on to the Australia Cup, in Perth, the following week.

The Auckland event is the first of eight on the Swedish Match Grand Prix Sailing Tour, with a total prize purse of $US150,000, in addition to $US40,000 available from the individual events.