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BMW Oracle and TeamNZ show off their spinnakers - Source: Richard Gladwell/Sail World -
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The jibes always draw the expected reaction: "It's a tough job but someone's got to do it:"
Personally, I've always thought it a great job when the first requirement is applying sunscreen before boarding a high speed rigid inflatable boat to spend a day watching the world's greatest sailors racing the sailing world's equivalent of Formula One Grand Prix cars.
And for two weeks we get to do it all again.
Wind the clock back six years and there were plenty of reasons to think we'd never see this spectacle any more.
After the America's Cup disappeared to Switzerland for quite a while so did the likelihood of those huge flat-top sails gracing the horizon of the Hauraki Gulf.
The rise from the ashes of Emirates Team New Zealand saw the boats back out there training but not racing.
And when Alinghi successively defended the Cup in Valencia the chance of an international regatta here in the big boats looked as remote as ever.
It's ironic yet very typical of the America's Cup that the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series has emerged because of a legal squabble, the frustration of the row between Alinghi and Oracle and their billionaire bosses driving the other would-be challengers into devising some way of getting the boats back on the water.
Once Grant Dalton and Bruno Trouble got the ball rolling it moved at astonishing speed and despite the worst recession for generations, ten teams are in Auckland champing at the bit to get racing.
The logistics beggar belief
In a matter of months shore crews from Team New Zealand and Oracle Racing have taken four America's Cup class yachts out of hibernation and worked feverishly to ready them for competition.
At the same time, NZL 84 and 92 and USA 87 and 98 have been re-configured so the performance of each pair is identical.
Yet while the boats will look familiar, the machiavellian machinations of the America's Cup and all its commercial codes and compliances means the craft are subtly different.
There's no trace of America's Cup logos for example - the old Cup silhouettes are on the mainsails have been replaced with the letters LV - and all four yachts have an addition to the keel which takes them outside the America's Cup Class and thus outside any costly copyright infringements.
What the even performance of the boats means of course is that this series is all about the sailors and not about boat speed.
The yachts will only ever race as pairs - there'll be no NZL84 v USA87 - which is just as well as it's widely acknowledged that the Oracle boats are probably quicker.
The race is on
The premium instead will be on boat handling, positioning and crew work and to make it even tougher the racing is on very short courses in the harbour just off North Head.
The legs will be about 1.4 nautical miles (nm) as opposed to 3.1 to 3.3 nm as raced in Valencia, leaving little room for catching up or overtaking.
A good start and choosing the right side of the course will be vital.
Those making the calls will be under real pressure. Team New Zealand's man-up-the-mast Adam Beashel is the man who will be trying to spot the wind shifts which won't be easy if spectator boats turn out in numbers around the course.
Along with the 22 official chase-boats they'll be churning up the water making the gusts harder to detect.
For spectators on the shore the action will have never been closer and they will have a grandstand seat as the world's top skippers battle it out.
The line up boasts the cream of America's Cup racers including the greatest of them all, Russell Coutts, back at the helm of a Cup boat for the first time in six years.
Vastly more experienced in these latest generation boats, though, are Dean Barker from Team New Zealand, Alinghi's Ed Baird, Ben Ainslie from the Team Origin British Challenge, and Paolo Cian driving for Shosholoza.
Luna Rossa has the veteran Peter Holmberg at the helm and former Oracle driver Gavin Brady is steering the Greek Challenge while the China Team has World Match Racing Tour Champion Ian Williams at the wheel, with the championship runner-up Sebastien Col at the French K-Challenge helm.
The common denominator is that they all really hate losing and in some duels there will be an under current of old rivalries and scores to settle with the Alinghi-Oracle legal battle in New York a prevailing element.
And although this series is billed as "friendly" not one of the crews has a clue what the word means once the gun goes.
Expect fireworks.
