Four of the six syndicates to be featured in the 35th America’s Cup are being represented at this week’s 2015 International Moth World Championships in Sorrento, Australia.

Sailors from Oracle Team USA, Emirates Team New Zealand, Artemis Racing and Luna Rossa are among a record field of 160 boats.

“This is pretty impressive to see and I think all of them are looking at this as a pretty good training boat for the America’s Cup,” Peter Rusch, the America’s Cup Event Authority spokesman, said. “Despite the fact it’s so small and is a single-handed boat, it’s a flying boat. In terms of getting familiar with foiling and those characteristics, it’s a pretty valuable experience.”

There was no racing Down Under yesterday, which was designated as a spare day.

After eight races, Peter Burling, of Emirates Team New Zealand, topped the leaderboard in the gold fleet. The Kiwi, who celebrated his 24th birthday on New Year’s Day, made a blistering start to the regatta, posting four consecutive wins during qualifying racing to lay down an early marker.

“I won all four races — the last one by over a lap — which is pretty pleasing in this fleet,” the 2012 Olympic silver medal-winner said. “It’s all come together here.”

Defending champion Nathan Outteridge, the helmsman of Artemis Racing, Chris Draper, of Luna Rossa, and Tom Slingsby, of Oracle, are also among the top half of the Gold fleet.

Adriano Petrino, of Switzerland, led the Silver fleet after seven races by a comfortable margin over nearest rival Tom Spithill, the brother of Jimmy Spithill, the Oracle skipper and 2014 ISAF World Sailor of the Year.

The International Moth is the most technically advanced racing dinghy in the world, capable of sailing at faster than 30 knots on hydrofoils.

Last summer, Oracle held a foiling camp in the Moth at Lake Macquarie in Australia.

Slingsby, the team manager of Oracle, said that the exercise is essential to the team’s preparations for the defence of the coveted “Auld Mug” in Bermuda in 2017.

“A lot of these guys had only ever foiled on AC72s, so the idea is to get everyone on the same page, bring our base skill level up and have everyone learn to foil in small boats,” said the Olympic gold medal-winner, 2010 World Sailor of the Year and America’s Cup. “Sailing these small foiling boats, you can then adapt that to the big America’s Cup foiling catamaran.

“Everyone gets out there and learns very quickly because of the size of the boat and then they can bring that knowledge back to how they sail the bigger boat.”