Team New Zealand have named a six-man crew for the first 37th America's Cup preliminary regatta in Barcelona this weekend.
The team features Peter Burling as skipper and helmsman, Blair Tuke and Andy Maloney as trimmers, alongside newest member Nathan Outteridge.
NZ Olympic sailors Josh Junior and Sam Meech will provide backup as reserve sailors for the team.
The racing will feature the four-person, AC40 foiling monohulls, with all six competing teams to line up on the start line in Vilanova i La Geltrú.
The regatta marks the first time Team NZ have raced competitively since they successfully defended the America's Cup in 2021.
"This weekend's going to be awesome," said skipper Peter Burling.
"We're looking forward to getting six of these AC40s out on the start line together. You know it's the first time in this America's Cup cycle we are all racing together, so just super excited to get into it
"It's obviously in a one design AC40, but nonetheless everyone's really competitive, so it's going to be a great battle."
The first preliminary regatta will give fans a chance to see these boats go head-to-head in this type of format.
The six teams will line up for official practice racing on Thursday (Friday NZ time), which will be followed by three days of racing.
The teams will battle it out in three fleet races on each of the opening two days, before two final races on Sunday to decide which two boats will face off in a one-off match race to determine the winner.
"It's a really cool format," said Team NZ performance engineer Elise Beavis.
"There's probably going to be ups and downs between different teams, in the multi-lap races.
"Then with the winners going on to do the match races it's going to provide some insight into how teams are going with the match racing which is obviously the format of the cup itself.
"There's plenty of opportunities to get past by doing things right and not making mistakes, similarly if you come off the foils, you're going to lose heaps and really fall back and have other teams come past."
This weekend's regatta is the first of three in the build up to the America's Cup, with the second to be hosted in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in November and the final in August of next year in Barcelona.
