Yacht racer Grant Dalton has set out on a 2000-nautical-mile shakedown cruise to decide which of his two boats he will skipper in the Volvo round-the-world race.
Dalton officially named his two Nautor Challenge yachts in Sardinia, in the Mediterranean, this week and immediately sailed for Spain.
One of the yachts is
designed by New Zealander Bruce Farr, the other is by German Frers, the chief designer for Nautor Swan, one of Dalton's major backers.
They have been named Amer Sports One and Amer Sports Too.
They will be skippered by Dalton and Lisa McDonald.
Dalton is expected to take the helm of the faster of the two boats. But that will be decided after the 2000-nautical-mile run through the Straits of Gibraltar and north along the coast of Portugal to the northern Spanish town of Sanxenxo.
More training for the crew of the two yachts will be staged in the north Atlantic until the end of this month before they head to Southampton, England, and the start of the race on September 23.
The Nautor Challenge campaign has links with the first round-the-world race 28 years ago.
Italian company Nautor Swan builds Swan yachts, and a Swan 65, Sayula II, won the first such race, then called the Whitbread, in 1973-74.
The nine-leg race will stop at 10 ports, including Auckland, where it is due to arrive from Sydney on January 3. The yachts will then leave Auckland on January 27.
The race finishes in Kiel, Germany, in June.
- NZPA
