Close to a third of the 22,000 or so black "Loyal" flags commissioned by the ASB Bank have found their way on to vehicles around the country.
Bank spokesman Mark Graham said the response was "really picking up".
Selling at $10 each ($5 going to Team New Zealand) at the bank's 120
branches nationwide, about 8000 have already been sold.
The bank has dressed its branches in the same theme and has frontline staff wearing Team New Zealand shirts. They are also handing out stickers.
* * *
America's Cup sailors were out in force yesterday on the first day of the Millennium Cup regatta.
Fifty yachts are involved in the event.
Although nobody was keen to estimate the value of the fleet, one punter had a guess at a staggering US$500 million ($908 million).
San Francisco's Paul Cayard, skipper of the 1992 challenger Il Moro di Venezia, is steering the record-breaking 97-foot (29.5m) sloop Canon Leopard, owned by Britain's Mike Slade.
Prada's Francesco de Angelis is helmsman on the 105-foot Italian fast cruising sloop Ulisse, and British skipper Ian Walker is at the helm of the oldest yacht in the Millennium Cup, 100-foot marconi gaff cutter Moonbeam, designed and built in 1914 by William Fife.
Prada's Gavin Brady is steering the 80-foot sloop Innovision and Prada's Brazilian tactician Torben Grael is aboard the 112-foot aluminium performance sloop Ipanema.
Stars & Stripes sailor Tom Whidden is sailing with Kiwi owner Neville Crichton on the 90-foot Sydney-Hobart race winner Alfa Romeo.
* * *
Although he didn't have the Louis Vuitton Cup with him to show the President of Switzerland, Pascal Couchepin, Alinghi syndicate head Ernesto Bertarelli gave the leader of his country the next best thing.
On his recent trip home, Bertarelli met with Couchepin and gave him a model of Alinghi's Louis Vuitton Cup-winning boat, SUI64.
It is understood Couchepin will not be in Auckland for the cup.
However, with 35 Swiss journalists in Auckland covering the event, the president should have no problem keeping an eye on his team's progress.
nzherald.co.nz/americascup
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