If SoftBank Team Japan fail to win the Argo Group Gold Cup it will not be for a lack of preparation.

The 35th America’s Cup challenger will warm up for next month’s World Match Racing Tour event by competing in Saturday’s Bacardi Bermuda National Match Racing Championships in Hamilton Harbour in the International One Design sloop.

“We don’t have much time to prepare for the Gold Cup so we’ll be using the Bermuda Match Race Nationals as a chance to practice in the IOD,” Dean Barker,the

Team Japan skipper and CEO and America’s Cup winner, said.

Barker’s crew includes Chris Draper, the Olympic medallist and multiple world and European 49er champion, Kazuhiko Sofuku, the team general manager, and Jeremy Lomas, who has competed in four America’s Cups.

Lomas and Barker sailed together with Emirates Team Zealand at the previous America’s Cup in San Francisco where they lost to Oracle Team USA, the defender, in the America’s Cup Match for the prestigious “Auld Mug”.

Team Japan and fellow challenger Artemis Racing are the two America’s Cup teams set to compete in the Gold Cup for the oldest match racing trophy in the world for competitions involving one-design yachts.

Both teams are also competing in the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series Bermuda, which follows closely on the heels of the Gold Cup.

Somers Kempe, the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club commodore, is the national match racing champion.

Kempe is back to defend his title and will compete with a crew that includes Blythe Walker, the multiple national match racing champion.

Walker, who finished third at the 2006 Gold Cup after defeating Switzerland’s Eric Monnin in the best-of-five Petite final, is expected to make a full recovery from a shoulder injury in time for the National Match Racing Championships.

The winner of Saturday’s regatta will receive an invitation to the Gold Cup. However, should the winner decline the invite, the spot will go to the second-place finisher.

n Bermuda skipper Eugene “Penny” Simmons got his International One Design World Championship title defence off to a poor start in Nantucket Sound this week.

After the opening four races of the nine race series, the Bermuda Sports Hall of Famer was shown in twelfth position among the 14-boat fleet.

Simmons, who is an eight-times IOD world champion, posted finishes of eleventh, twelfth, fifth and twelfth which left the veteran skipper well off the lead pace.

John Henry, of the Northeast Harbour IOD fleet, topped the leaderboard after the opening four races.