Rowing Otago manager Sonya Walker said the New Zealand squad, comprising rowers from Otago, Auckland, Wellington, Waikato and Canterbury, had been training in Dunedin for the past 10 days preparing for the series, which begins at Lake Hayes today.
The 25 rowers have been selected from universities around New Zealand and will compete in the men's and women's eight, women's lightweight quad and men's lightweight four.
Lake Hayes will be the site for 2km races, being held from 10am today and Thursday, with a 5km race scheduled for Otago Harbour in Dunedin on Saturday.
Walker said the New Zealand squad would be defending its title from 2008.
Last year, the Australians were unable to field a team, so the event could not be held.
Every second year the Australian team came to New Zealand for the event, which had been running for about 10 years.
"Quite often the Australians come to Queenstown with quite a good crew.
Over the history of the event we tend to be quite dominant in the eights [but] we're up and down with the lightweights."
Eric Murray and Hamish Bond's rivals could only sit and watch as the New Zealand pair continued their remarkable dominance at the Henley Regatta in London yesterday.
Murray and Bond recorded their ninth consecutive victory over British pair Andy Triggs-Hodge and Pete Reed - the Beijing Olympic gold medallists - to win the Silver Goblets in the premier match-racing event.
The New Zealanders trailed early on, but turned on the power to record a decisive 15-second victory.
They will look to make it 10 straight against their British rivals at this weekend's World Cup round in Lucerne.
There was more good news for New Zealand when Mahe Drysdale shook off a back injury to win the Diamond Sculls title for a second consecutive year.
In a stiff headwind, four-time world champion Drysdale edged away from Sweden's top sculler, Lassi Karonen, for a three-boat-length margin.
New Zealand's two other finalists, the men's eight and the women's quad, were beaten in their respective finals.
The eight stayed with the German world champions for half of the course before fading slightly to a two-length defeat, while the women's quad crew were no match for the powerful British crew.
