KEY POINTS:
The first little boat Grant Loretz owned - a P-Class paid for by delivering papers and mowing lawns - was aptly named Huff and Puff.
"I remember my first race. I had a nice handy lead but didn't know how to finish," the Emirates Team New Zealand trimmer recalls.
"I was so far ahead of myself I couldn't figure out how to stop and finish the race."
You can picture the youngster Loretz sailing off into the sunset not quite knowing how to ease off, much to the amusement of his competitors - guys such as Team New Zealand teammate Matthew Mason and Oracle sailors Craig Monk and Robbie Naismith.
No one pokes fun at Loretz now, one of the real veterans of the America's Cup, with Valencia his sixth regatta.
All have been with New Zealand campaigns - from a sailmaker with the first Kiwi challenge in 1987, through 1995 where he sailed with Chris Dickson's Tag Heuer, to Team New Zealand in 2000 and beyond.
His career has changed a lot in those 20 years to where he is now a key trimmer on board the Team New Zealand raceboat. He is also a father these days - little Harrison Loretz looks desperately for his dad whenever NZL92 eases down the canal to the racecourse in Valencia.
Loretz was born far from the sea, in Tokoroa where his father was a school teacher. A month after he was born, his family moved on to Morrinsville, then on to the nursery of New Zealand sailing, Murrays Bay, where he grew up just down the road from the sailing club.
"I used to get on my bike and spend a lot of time down at the beach swimming, diving, fishing or playing with boats. It was a playground for me.
"I was inspired by what I used to see at the yacht club and always wanted to go racing but I didn't have the right boat so I had to save up and buy a P-Class."
Loretz moved on to Starlings, and when he was too small physically for the Laser, jumped into keel boat sailing, and started a sail-making apprenticeship.
After competing in an array of keel boat regattas, including the Kenwood Cup, he joined New Zealand's first foray into the America's Cup, employed as a sail maker.
"That's when sailing started to take off as a professional sport. Fremantle was a pretty fun time for all of us because it was something new.
"It was the first stage of the professional era but it still had a lot of the fun element attached to it because that is what we knew, that's where we had come from."
From sail-making he progressed onto trimming. His first cup as a sailor was in 1992 on the New Zealand Challenge's NZL20. From there, gazing up to check the headsail is taut has become Loretz's full-time job.
"The basics are still the same but I am probably less hands-on in terms of sail design and concentrate more on the sailing.
"In most campaigns I have been involved in we have only had one designer - now we have a couple of sail designers and many other people. The sail designers do the smart stuff and press the keys on the keyboard and we tell them what we want to see."
On race days Loretz has a list of jobs as long as his arm. His day starts getting a rundown from the weather team on the forecast, before the team decide which sails to load on the race boat, the chase boat and tender.
Loretz says they usually take out between 35-40 sails each day to ensure they have the full range of conditions covered - a must in the ever-changing weather of Valencia.
The challengers are allowed only 45 sails for the whole Louis Vuitton Cup, so they have to be careful how they use them.
On the racecourse the team will do a series of warm up manoeuvres going upwind and downwind, round a mark and back to the startline which acts to calibrate the wind speed.
On receiving the final forecast the inventory of sails on the race boat may be changed again.
During racing Loretz is in charge of the headsails, James Dagg the downwind sails and Don Cowie the mainsail.
Sails and rigs were thought to be the area where the most development was expected.
Loretz says they are happy with the advances they've made to their downwind sails.
"We had a good season last year which gave us a lot of confidence in a lot of areas. Hopefully we have moved up another step."
