Money talks on water

If anyone is to deprive New Zealand of the America's Cup, then they will first have to win the Louis Vuitton Cup, the prize for the challenger series that begins in Auckland on Tuesday. Britain is back in the event after an absence of 16 years and four competitions, though GBR Challenge faces an uphill battle against eight other entrants, including the Italian Prada team, beaten 5-0 by the defenders and hosts three years ago.

Skipper Ian Walker is leading a team funded by Peter Harrison, a sailing enthusiast who sold his communications business and has been solely responsible for putting Britain back into the event that began with a race around the Isle of Wight in 1851.

The America's Cup has become a big-money event with close to $500 million (£323m) being poured into the 10 teams this time. Money buys time and technology, the two most important resources. This has always been a technology-driven event, ever since the Americans sought to display their design and shipbuilding superiority 151 years ago at Cowes.

Today, that technology is present in ever-increasing amounts - in the construction and engineering of the boats and their rigs, developed from their computer-driven designs. Dennis Conner, the most experienced competitor, having sailed in eight previous cups, indicated recently that should any of the syndicates find a precious tenth-of-a-knot or two over and above the competition, all other bets may be off.

The 10 days of the first round-robin stage will reveal whether anyone has that sort of advantage. It is unlikely that any one team has made that jump, but all are likely to be faster than the best boats three years ago. It was then that the Kiwis sailed rings around the Italians in the final, demonstrating the superiority to which Conner referred.

Prada is no longer the favourite to win the Louis Vuitton Cup despite spending $90m and recruiting many of the world's top sailors.

Early sparring with boats from other teams has shown the Italians to be short of speed. Alinghi, the Swiss syndicate that recruited cup- winning skipper Russell Coutts and a handful of his core crew from Team New Zealand, look to be favourites, along with the US team from Seattle, OneWorld, skippered by Peter Gilmour, who also secured the services of some of the last-time winning crew.

Oracle-BMW Racing, an $85m set-up with Bruce Farr as its design chief, is the highest profile syndicate. The America's Cup is the only major sailing event that Farr has yet to win. Oracle-BMW is skippered by this year's leading match-racer, Peter Holmberg.

Conner is back with the New York Yacht club for the first time since losing the cup to Australia in 1983. His Stars & Stripes team had a boat sink on their final day of practice in Los Angeles. But with the narrowest boat on the racecourse, they may just have the design breakthrough of which Conner has hinted.

Walker and Harrison were able to recruit the very best British sailors for GBR Challenge, though their realistic aim is to reach the semi-final. It is, in the words of the sailors themselves, 'a big ask', but one that is within their ability.

GBR Challenge has chosen to use Wight Lightning, the earlier of its two boats, for the opening round robin as the sailors feel more comfortable with her than with the radical Wight Magic that has only been in the water for two weeks. There is every indication that Wight Magic will be brought into play for the second round robin that starts on 22 October.

The remaining three syndicates, Mescalzone Latino (Italy), Le Défi Areva (France) and Victory (Sweden), have even smaller budgets than the $35m of GBR Challenge and one of them is likely to be excluded from the competition at the end of the two round robins.

The draw for the pairings in the first round robin takes place tomorrow.