Team Origin to face Azzurra in opening race of the LV Trophy Auckland

[Source: Team Origin] Today, Monday 8th March 2010, was the last of the two practise days here in Auckland and tomorrow sees the start of action with day one of racing planned. As ever the event set-up is slick and professional with Emirates Team New Zealand boat preparation and technical set up for the event second to none. Two ETNZ race boats are being used : NZL 84 and NZL 92, with a BMW Oracle Racing boat as a back up.

TEAMORIGIN have been here for around two weeks now, they did some boat preparation and shake-down sailing with ETNZ towards the end of February and then the match race team competed in the Omega Match Race event, taking 2nd place after achieving more race wins than any other team but sadly losing out in the finals to ETNZ.

Ben Ainslie & Co ready to fight for the LV Trophy. Auckland, 8 March 2010. Photo copyright Ian Roman / Team Origin

This evening the opening press conference took place at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron. The draw for racing tomorrow saw the following race schedule planned for day one: first warning signal due at 1000 local time so we should see TEAMORIGIN racing around 1200.

Race 1 : All4One in NZL 84 (starboard end start) vs Mascalzone Latino in NZL92
Race 2 : TEAMORIGIN in NZL 84 (stanboard end start) vs Azzurra in NZL 92
Race 3 : Artemis in NZL 84 (starboard end start) vs ETNZ in NZL 92
Race 4 : Aleph in NZL 92 vs Synergy (starboard end start) in NZL 84

Ben Ainslie & Co ready to fight for the LV Trophy. Auckland, 8 March 2010. Photo copyright Ian Roman / Team Origin

Ben Ainslie & Co ready to fight for the LV Trophy. Auckland, 8 March 2010. Photo copyright Ian Roman / Team Origin

Ben Ainslie & Co ready to fight for the LV Trophy. Auckland, 8 March 2010. Photo copyright Ian Roman / Team Origin