Sailor Hamish Pepper, dropped as tactician midway through Team New Zealand's failed America's Cup defence two years ago, says he is having more fun in his latest campaign.
Pepper has joined Italian syndicate Mascalzone Latino, who will be among the challengers when the Auld Mug comes up for grabs againoff Valencia in 2007.
The Aucklander skippered a five-strong Mascalzone Latino crew at the Elba Cup, an Italian match-racing regatta won yesterday for the second year in a row by fellow New Zealander Russell Coutts.
It was Coutts who put Pepper out before the quarterfinal stages of the event, which is part of the Swedish Match Tour.
A Team NZ crew skippered by Briton Ben Ainslee also missed out on making the top eight.
Pepper, a high-profile casualty during Team NZ's 5-0 whitewash by the Coutts-skippered Swiss entry Alinghi at the last America's Cup, described his new syndicate as "a really fun team to be a part of".
"When a team is fun, you tend to get more out of the individuals, because they don't mind staying on the base until late," he said in an interview on Mascalzone Latino's website.
"I think the atmosphere here is far and away more enjoyable than what I experienced with Team NZ."
Pepper, who is Mascalzone Latino's back-up helmsman, was pleased with his crew's performance at Elba.
As for himself, he was getting used to match-racing again after his Laser dinghy campaign for last year's Athens Olympics.
Mascalzone Latino will be one of three Italian challengers at the next America's Cup.
The series of regattas building up to 2007 continues at Valencia next month and Pepper said his syndicate were looking for improvements in a range of areas.
"We are a younger campaign than some of the others," he said.
"But I think that we can arrive in Valencia with reasonable boats and good clean crew work, and hopefully take some wins."
While with Mascalzone Latino, Pepper, 33, was also taking the chance to improve some non-sailing skills.
Although the syndicate drew its staff from a number of countries, "the roots are very much Italian", he said.
"Hence, all of us English-speaking additions to the team are learning to be Italian. We're taking language lessons and really appreciating our time here."
