KEY POINTS:
Team New Zealand's decision to extend their training session in Auckland may have given them a leg up on their opposition, with many of their rivals struggling to find suitable testing conditions in Valencia.
The team had originally planned to ship their boats back to Valencia in December, but found the money to the fly them in February instead, which allowed them an extra two months of testing and training on the Hauraki Gulf.
Emirates Team New Zealand have been back in Valencia for three weeks, during which time managing director Grant Dalton reckons there has only been about one day that has been steady enough for testing.
"Our whole kind of mode is a racing mode and manoeuvres and trying to get our crew work to the highest level we can get it. Luckily that was the plan because the testing here has been nonexistent," Dalton said.
"The time in New Zealand, we always knew it would be good but we didn't realise it would be that good ... no team that stayed here, I believe, can have had reliable testing of any shape or form."
Dalton said in recent weeks the weather systems in Europe had created a northerly, or an offshore breeze, that is too shifty to test in.
"When it is not strong offshore and the sea breeze tries to come in, it is so early in the season that the sea breeze can't really get in.
"It never really establishes and it is really, really light.
"We had one day we raced Luna Rossa where it got up to about 12 [knots] and it was good racing but that's it, other than that it has been hopeless really."
But Team New Zealand were not the only syndicate to leave Valencia over the northern winter. BMW Oracle Racing also trained here while Alinghi and Victory Challenge went to Dubai.
Alinghi are believed to have done a lot of work on dealing with wind in Valencia, which tends to vary in speed between the top of the mast and the bottom and have an effect on sail profile.
"It is the logical thing to do, we didn't do it," Dalton said.
"Will that make a difference at the end? It might."
Dalton said Team New Zealand had not raced Oracle since being back in Valencia. The two were to have met recently but Team New Zealand wanted to race NZL84 and Oracle wanted them in NZL92.
"It may have been a deliberate move not to race us because they are very happy with where they are," Dalton said.
"From what I have seen, they look bloody good."
Dalton said Luna Rossa were also going well.
"I think they both - Luna Rossa and Oracle - may have written off their first boats, that would be my read. They are sacrificial, but for us NZL84 is not sacrificial at all and looking at Alinghi's SUI91, it is not sacrificial either. SUI100 and SUI91 look similar to each other."
He said they had raced against the Spanish, who were good, and Mascalzone Latino, who he thought had improved.
Dalton said the black boats had both been measured.
"We are still building bits and pieces but the boats are pretty much locked down in terms of their configuration."
Dalton said one of the key things for his team was managing energy levels. As a result they are now in the middle of a six-day break.
