It’s all quiet on the legal front in the America’s Cup this week. As I understand it, Société Nautique de Genève (SNG) and Alinghi have 30 days to respond to the Golden Gate Yacht Club’s filing with the New York State Supreme Court. So we’re on hold for a bit in the court war…
Meanwhile, there are rumours of more teams signing up for Alinghi’s next Cup, a couple of stories going around this morning include one out of the fevered pro-sail-fest that is the Copa del Ray in Palma. Both the Valencia Sailing blog and Marian Martin in BYM News are reporting that a second Spanish challenge is forming.
The BYM News story has more details, saying that the mover and shaker is Pedro Perello, who is currently racing the TP52 Siemens with Paul Cayard. Unsurprisingly, Cayard is slated as skipper, with Juan K being mentioned as designer. So that’ll be the third or the fourth team that the Argentinian will be working for in this Cup cycle…? I guess it’s all pretty speculative at this stage, but the campaign has a putative budget of 100 million Euros.
There’s also a story about an Australian Challenge – the Aussies have missed the previous two Cups, their last entry being the horribly underfunded affair that launched Jimmy Spithill and his mates on to the scene in Auckland in 2000. The story has it that there will be an announcement in September, which is the 24th anniversary of Australia II’s victory in Newport.
Elsewhere, Rex Gilfillan has once again given me the heads up, this time on a statement from Vincenzo Onorato of Mascalzone Latino, outlining a sensible path forward - although I fear that it's already gone too far for any kind of conciliatory negotiating type stuff.
The New Zealand Herald certainly think so, they have published a piece saying that Oracle are already designing that 90 foot catamaran. All that work that Russell's done on those 70 footers for the World Sailing League is coming in useful anyway...
Anonymous asked in a comment:
‘Excuse my ignorance, but will teams be allowed to tune up with each other? In that case will we see the likes of Oracle funding two separate entries (under different names) so that they can spend time two boat tuning?’
The short answer is no - the only time anyone will be allowed to line up against another Cup boat is in official racing organized by ACM. But with everyone in Valencia and sailing around on the same piece of water, I don't know quite how this is going to be policed. Maybe ACM will organize some Valencian ‘line-up marshalls’ who’ll buzz around and ping anyone who gets too close to another boat for too long…
So I’m off to Cowes Week for my annual regatta on an arm of the sea, and if I get out of the beer tent and back to the computer in time, I might even bring you some news of the Solent’s annual sail frenzy. But don't count on it. And yes, I know, I still haven’t sorted out the links - one day this blog will look like everyone else's, but not just yet...
www.markchisnell.com
Mark Chisnell ©
Meanwhile, there are rumours of more teams signing up for Alinghi’s next Cup, a couple of stories going around this morning include one out of the fevered pro-sail-fest that is the Copa del Ray in Palma. Both the Valencia Sailing blog and Marian Martin in BYM News are reporting that a second Spanish challenge is forming.
The BYM News story has more details, saying that the mover and shaker is Pedro Perello, who is currently racing the TP52 Siemens with Paul Cayard. Unsurprisingly, Cayard is slated as skipper, with Juan K being mentioned as designer. So that’ll be the third or the fourth team that the Argentinian will be working for in this Cup cycle…? I guess it’s all pretty speculative at this stage, but the campaign has a putative budget of 100 million Euros.
There’s also a story about an Australian Challenge – the Aussies have missed the previous two Cups, their last entry being the horribly underfunded affair that launched Jimmy Spithill and his mates on to the scene in Auckland in 2000. The story has it that there will be an announcement in September, which is the 24th anniversary of Australia II’s victory in Newport.
Elsewhere, Rex Gilfillan has once again given me the heads up, this time on a statement from Vincenzo Onorato of Mascalzone Latino, outlining a sensible path forward - although I fear that it's already gone too far for any kind of conciliatory negotiating type stuff.
The New Zealand Herald certainly think so, they have published a piece saying that Oracle are already designing that 90 foot catamaran. All that work that Russell's done on those 70 footers for the World Sailing League is coming in useful anyway...
Anonymous asked in a comment:
‘Excuse my ignorance, but will teams be allowed to tune up with each other? In that case will we see the likes of Oracle funding two separate entries (under different names) so that they can spend time two boat tuning?’
The short answer is no - the only time anyone will be allowed to line up against another Cup boat is in official racing organized by ACM. But with everyone in Valencia and sailing around on the same piece of water, I don't know quite how this is going to be policed. Maybe ACM will organize some Valencian ‘line-up marshalls’ who’ll buzz around and ping anyone who gets too close to another boat for too long…
So I’m off to Cowes Week for my annual regatta on an arm of the sea, and if I get out of the beer tent and back to the computer in time, I might even bring you some news of the Solent’s annual sail frenzy. But don't count on it. And yes, I know, I still haven’t sorted out the links - one day this blog will look like everyone else's, but not just yet...
www.markchisnell.com
Mark Chisnell ©