The next couple weeks, USVI's Peter Holmberg, is out on the professional circuit participating in the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series. Peter is not the only one who has been away from that level of racing lately. With the America's Cup still in limbo after 18 months of bitter feuding between holders Alinghi and Larry Ellison's BMW Oracle Racing, the ten international teams assembled in Auckland for the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series may feel a bit rusty.

Holmberg, who has stayed a little closer to home lately, said, "I got a call a few months back from the Luna Rossa team when this event was launched. The team has been just hibernating, waiting for the Cup legal fiasco to conclude. The existing team consists of only a few of the former team members, with new members like myself coming from several teams from the last cup. With the future of the Cup still so uncertain, we have no long term commitments, so we'll see how this goes and then what happens with the courts. So far it's been great, a nice group of people, a new organization, and a chance to see other teams boats and systems."

Tomorrow (or this afternoon Caribbean time) they'll be kicking off the first day of racing. From the beginning, organizers of the Louis Vuitton series set out to create a very different environment to that of the secretive and tetchy atmosphere of an America's Cup regatta.

As printed in the New Zealand Herald, a high level of co-operation was required among all the teams to ensure the success of the inaugural Louis Vuitton series, and the mood at the regatta village is friendly and open.

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