The 5th Louis Vuitton Cup was held in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2000. The winner, Prada Challenge, went on to challenge for the 2000 America's Cup. It was the first time in the competition's history that there would not be an American challenger or defender. Details After winning the 29th America's Cup, Team New Zealand immediately accepted the challenge from the New York Yacht Club and announced that the next Cup would be in 2000, with the Louis Vuitton Cup being in late 1999. This delay was to avoid conflicting with the 1997/98 Whitbread Round the World Race and give Auckland the time to build the necessary infrastructure to host the cup. The teams The New York Yacht Club was the challenger of record. By 31 January 1998 16 teams from 10 nations had made the $US 250,000 deposit to officially challenge for the America's Cup. In the end only 11 challenges from seven nations competed for the Louis Vuitton Cup. Hong Kong, British and Russian challenges withdrew while an American team and a French team merged into existing challenges. Prada Challenge (ITA) A strong two boat challenge led by Patrizio Bertelli and sponsored by Prada, the team was formed in 1997 and became an early favourite in Auckland. The team used designer Germán Frers who worked for Il Moro di Venezia in 1992. Francesco de Angelis was the skipper with Rod Davis acting as the sailing coach. The crew included Matteo Plazzi, Alan Smith, Giuseppe Brizzi, Pietro D'Ali, Simone de Mari, mid-bowman Max Sirena and Torben Grael. Prada originally acquired two boats from the America3 syndicate before building ITA 45 and ITA 48. Umberto Panerai was a trainer. AmericaOne (USA) Skippered by Paul Cayard, AmericaOne was one of two syndicates from the San Francisco Bay Area in 2000. AmericaOne purchased OneAustralia as a training boat before developing USA-49 and USA-61. The team included tactician John Kostecki, navigator Terry Hutchinson, Lexi Gahagan, Billy Bates, Curtis Blewett, Josh Belsky, Gavin Brady, Sean Clarkson, Justin Clougher, Kevin Hall, Mike Howard, Pieter Van Nieuwenhuyzen, Morgan Larson, David McClintock, Jim Nicholas, Carter Perrin, Greg Prussia, Russ Silvestri, Ralf Steitz, Phil Trinter, Morgan Trubovich, Matt Welling and Ray Davies. Robert Billingham was the chief operations officer. Aloha Racing (USA) Funded by Dr Jim Andrews, Aloha Racing built on their ocean racing history to launch an America's Cup challenge from Hawaii. Skippered by veteran John Kolius,