KEY POINTS:
Bruno Trouble, known to many as "Mr America's Cup" because of his 30-year association with the event, is delighted to be back in Auckland - as much a home away from home for the Frenchman as any place.
His family lived here for 18 months - his sons
studied and played rugby at Auckland Grammar, when Team New Zealand battled Swiss syndicate Alinghi on the Waitemata Harbour.
His wife, Melanie, has the country in her veins thanks to a Kiwi grandmother, and his "yacht of a lifetime" was built here, flys the New Zealand flag and is named Wanaka in honour of his first glimpse of the southern lake.
Sir Peter Blake's family are close friends - Trouble's family bought Seamaster, the boat Blake had built to study the oceans' ecology - and the Labour government awarded Trouble the Order of New Zealand for his work during the two America's Cup contests held here.
"I love it here," he says, in
English as delightfully coiffured as his luminous hair.
Trouble, who managed the media centres for the Challenger Series and America's Cups in Auckland in 2000 and 2003, is back to organise the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series raced on the Waitemata from January 30 to February 14.
Ten teams from nine countries will race four America's Cup boats - two each from Team New Zealand and BMW Oracle - drawing ballots each morning to determine which boat they will sail. Work has been done to pare the boats back to make them as even as possible, thereby shifting the emphasis from boat speed to the crew.
This has resulted in the unusual sight of the Oracle boats - fierce America's Cup rivals - being repainted in Kiwi black.
Ask Trouble whom he rates as New Zealand's best sailor and he begins with an apology. "I am sorry, but the best New Zealand sailor ever is Russell Coutts. I think Peter Blake, if we talk about off-shore sailing, but what Russell Coutts has achieved is even bigger."
Coutts was at the helm when New Zealand won the cup and successfully defended it, and when Alinghi took it away in 2003.
Coutts is back with BMW Oracle for the Pacific Series.
Trouble, 64, makes no secret of his disappointment with the state of play of the America's Cup. "I hate Valencia," he says of the Spanish city which hosted the last Cup.
The idea for the Pacific Series came out of frustrations with the America's Cup under the control of Alinghi boss, Swiss millionaire Ernesto Bertarelli. It is, says Trouble, a way of getting yachtsmen back on the water and is not an attempt to rival the America's Cup.
When the Cup began again, Louis Vuitton would sponsor the Challenger Series.
"I hope he [Bertarelli] realises what the situation is. I personally, and Louis Vuitton, love the America's Cup too much to even think about competing against it."
The Pacific Series had already helped the future of the America's Cup by prompting syndicates to talk to each other.
"The Cup will survive. It is very badly affected at present by this childish fight. But it has survived for 156 years now. It may take some time for it to get its lustre back."
A lawyer by training, marketer by instinct and sailor by passion, Trouble sailed on the French challenge in 1977. Back then, a living could not be had sailing for the Auld Mug. Trouble (pronounced Trooblay) made a successful switch to the business of yacht racing, in particular by advancing the interests of Louis Vuitton and by association the Challenger Series and America's Cup. And that, says Trouble, is mostly fun.
After the Cup finished in 2003, Trouble sailed Wanaka around the Pacific Islands.
When the Pacific Series ends in February, Trouble, with his wife and a dozen friends, head to the South Island on a campervan trip.