Dean Barker marked his appointment as CEO and skipper of late America’s Cup entry Softbank Team Japan by flying around the Great Sound yesterday with the team whose title he will be gunning for in 2017.

Barker had the rare opportunity to sail with rival skipper Jimmy Spithill and Oracle Team USA, the team that denied him and his former Emirates Team New Zealand colleagues victory at the previous America’s Cup on the waters of San Francisco Bay.

“Being on the 45 with the Oracle guys was fantastic,” Barker said. “The boats are just fantastic for the size of the venue.”

Spithill, the youngest skipper to win the America’s Cup, also savoured the rare moment.

“Being able to have a chat with him about the past Cup has been kind of cool because we haven’t really spoken since,” Spithill, the 2005 King Edward VII Gold Cup winner, said. “It’s great to see him have the opportunity to get back there and I’d love nothing better to see him go out there and beat [Grant] Dalton [the Emirates Team New Zealand chief executive].”

Having been granted another bite at the cherry after being controversially sacked as Team New Zealand’s skipper earlier this year, Barker is up for the challenge with Team Japan and is relishing the “incredible opportunity to build a new team from the ground up”.

“It’s an honour to take on the responsibility of both CEO and skipper of SoftBank Team Japan,” the 2000 America’s Cup winner said. “Obviously it’s very exciting times being back out on the water with an America’s Cup team racing but also the ability to mould a new team. It’s certainly not the sort of position I thought I would be in but very exciting.”

Barker brings a wealth of experience to the Japanese team having sailed in four America’s Cup matches all for his native New Zealand.

As an understudy to Sir Russell Coutts, the Oracle Team USA chief executive, Barker steered Team New Zealand to the fifth and clinching race in the 2000 match against Italy’s Luna Rossa.

As a skipper in his own right Barker has won the Louis Vuitton Cup twice but came out on the losing end of three America’s Cup matches, including defeat in the previous final after blowing an 8-1 advantage against defender Oracle.

Team Japan’s challenge, through the Kansai Yacht Club, was accepted by the Golden Gate Yacht Club, represented by Oracle Team USA, earlier this month. The team is being funded by Japanese billionaire and Softbank boss Masoyashi Son, Japan’s wealthiest man reported to be worth around $29 billion.

Having entered the game at a late stage, Barker and his Team Japan colleagues must hit the ground running to get themselves up to par for July’s America’s Cup World Series curtain raiser in Portsmouth, England — the home port of British challenger Ben Ainslie Racing.

“Obviously we’re late starting,” Barker said. “But I think with the way this event is set up now there’s a very good opportunity for new teams coming in to get on the pace reasonably quickly. We’re filling the key roles on the team as quickly as we can.

“I think we’re pulling together a very strong team. We want to compete at the head of the fleet and we’re assembling a team that is capable of doing that. Our goal is to win the America’s Cup.”

Yesterday’s sail with Oracle gave Barker the opportunity to have a first-hand look at the sailing venue for the 35th America’s Cup.

“I think we are going to see a very interesting venue, nice flat water and a good sort of size of environment,” he said. “It will be some good racing and challenges for the teams with the shifts and puffs and everything else.

“It probably won’t be as much as a one way track as we’ve had in the past, so it will really open the racecourse up.”