Peter Lester: Pre-regatta not time to show your hand

Opinion

Expect a bit of sandbagging from the "big three" challengers when they line up against Alinghi in the 10th America's Cup pre-regatta in Valencia.

Traditionally the defender and the challengers have maintained their distance leading up to the America's Cup.

But the introduction of these build-up regattas has changed things a bit.

Emirates Team New Zealand, Luna Rossa and Oracle are all racing their new boats in this regatta while Alinghi are using one of their old boats, SUI75.

The challengers already know the performance parameters of SUI75.

Alinghi know they can beat up the challengers' old boats but will be looking to calibrate against their new ones.

If the challengers don't play ball then it makes it a bit difficult.

Oracle chief executive and skipper Chris Dickson has said his team are not going to give too much away against Alinghi.

Dickson pointed out they had all this innovation on their new boat so why show it to the defenders?

Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa are in the same position. You don't want to make it easy for those guys - they are already an extremely strong team.

So I would question any results against Alinghi - especially if those racing their new boats get beaten.

Team New Zealand's main priority in this regatta is to check in with their new boat NZL84.

While all three new boats - NZL84, Oracle's USA87 and Luna Rossa's ITA86 - are Mediterranean type boats, suited to 8-12 knots and choppy, short seas, they are very different.

The mast on USA87 is quite far forward which indicates the balance of the boat is being approached in a different way.

It could mean the keel is in a different position or it could mean a whole different keel setup.

The talk is the new Luna Rossa boat is not going very well.

Luna Rossa have practised against Alinghi, which has caused some controversy, but I guess they just wanted to check in and find out.

The scale of everything has gone up from Auckland. The bases for example are huge. While Team New Zealand's is very functional and very Kiwi, the bases of Alinghi, Oracle and Luna Rossa are like massive hotels.

So with four new boats on show, not forgetting Team Shosholoza were the first to launch a 2007 generation boat last year, this regatta is going to be a good one.

While Oracle have been keen to highlight the fact they have used technology in the automobile and aerospace industry to create USA87 I think Dickson best summed it up when he said all the innovation and research will only get you to the start line - it is yacht racing that gets you to the finish line.

Peter Lester is a former America's Cup tactician