One year from the start of the Louis Vuitton Challenger series, syndicate's preparations are well on track.

Unsurprisly, all of the "Big Guns teams" (Alinghi, BMW Oracle, Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa) are in Valencia, taking advantage of every day in order to train with both their boats.

In this battle of giants, Alinghi's new SUI 91 is still inside the team's shed in Valencia's but all of the three top challengers are sailing and testing their newly built and delivered yachts :

having started to sail with the ITA 86 on March 21, only Luna Rossa have made it absolutely clear that it is their intention to race with their new boat in three weeks ;

if ETNZ have not officially confirmed it, Terry Hutchinson says of NZL 84 - which is in the Valencian waters since the last week, briefly - "I'd be surprised if we didn't race it." (in Acts 10 & 11) ;

BMW Oracle has neither confirmed nor denied its intention to race in tcompetition with the new USA 87 (which was launched on March 21.

There is still a glass ceiling in the pecking order between fourth spot - bottom of 'Division One' - and fifth overall - seen as first place in the 'Second Division'.

Behind the "big four, one thing becoming increasingly clear is that a intermediate division is emerging with new well financed syndicates :

Desafío Español, which have all the ingredients to be among the top flight of challengers, finished fourth among the challengers in the 2005 season and will launch a its ESP 88 in the beginning of May (the boat will race in the LV Act 12 in June) ;

Team Germany, who finished 10th on the season leaderboard, began to have new ambitions with a €50 million budget, a base which is well advanced in Valencia and a new boat (GER 89) which will be launch on April 24th ;

the €60 million Mascalzone Latino is quite surprising with its ITA 90 still inside the team's shed in Valencia's (the boat is arrived at same time as ITA 86 in Valencia).

The frontiers of this intermediate division is still open, particularly for Areva Challenge and Shosholoza, two team with a small budget (but with a budget) :

French fans have high hopes of Areva Challenge repeating in 2006 their barnstorming performance from 2005 but they have not started building their boat although Areva commitment ;

first to launch a new boat (RSA 83), Shosholoza suffered a difficult year in 2005 want now to consolidate the gains made this season and to ramp up the sailing programme.

Finally, there was always a chance that all 12 teams were not going to make it through to the Louis Vuitton Cup in 2007 with three teams still looking for funds :

China have started building their base in Valencia but the beginning of the conception for the new boat is only scheduled for the next summer ;

Victory Challenge are building a base but not any information concerning a budget and a new boat ;

in spite of the regional supporters such as Sicilia, +39 Challenge never had any major visible support and, according to rumours, works on new ITA 85 has ceased.

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