12:02 PM Thu 18 Mar 2010 GMT
America's Cup winner Jimmy Spithill, along with other team members who are in Auckland this week, met with the next generation of potential Cup sailors on Thursday afternoon, when the team held a Q+A and poster signing session for the kids who have been sailing in the Louis Vuitton Junior Trophy regatta.
Two groups of 20 kids have been racing a qualifying series that will see the top ten from each group compete on Saturday for a chance to be 18th man during the final of the Louis Vuitton Trophy.
At the session, they had the opportunity to meet the team members and learn from Jimmy what it was like to sail on the USA. And they could see the AC trophy, up close, and personal.
Suzanne McFadden, writing for the LVT website spoke with Jimmy as the session started:
The future stars of New Zealand yachting have been given a special glimpse of the prize many of them are ultimately aiming for - the America's Cup.
Forty young sailors from the Louis Vuitton Junior Trophy regatta, being sailed inside the Viaduct Harbour in O'pen Bic boats, got an up-close and personal meeting with the Auld Mug tonight at Voyager New Zealand Maritime Museum, and also met some of the team who now hold it.
Cup winners BMW Oracle, who brought the silver ewer to Auckland this week, gathered all of its team members currently scattered across the different teams competing in the Louis Vuitton Trophy Auckland, to talk to the youth sailors.
BMW Oracle skipper Jimmy Spithill - who first sailed in the America's Cup as a teenager - was among the senior sailors encouraging the kids.
'We appreciate all the people who come to see us and congratulate us with the Cup. But for us, the exciting thing is meeting the kids,' he says.
'Especially the kids sailing these great little boats. These kids are the future of world sailing. And I wouldn't be surprised if one day they're sailing boats like these, but on a bigger scale, in the America's Cup.'
The final of the Louis Vuitton Junior Trophy will be sailed on Saturday, at 2pm. The winner receives an O'pen Bic boat and the privilege of sailing as 18th man in the final of the Louis Vuitton Trophy on Sunday.
by Peter Rusch and Suzanne McFadden
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