Alinghi to race for America's Cup in 2010 24/04/2009 |
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America's Cup holders Alinghi and U.S. syndicate BMW Oracle will race each other in huge multihulls for the 33rd edition of sailing's oldest competition next year, the Swiss team said on Thursday.
Bad blood has run between the two teams since the 2007 Cup when BMW Oracle took Alinghi to court arguing that the rules its club SNG had set for the next races were illegitimate.
A New York court upheld the U.S. challenge this month which, under America's Cup rules, means that BMW Oracle takes on the role of lead challenger so could take Alinghi on head-to-head or open up the regatta to other teams.
BMW Oracle, bankrolled by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, at first challenged Alinghi to race alone in multihulls -- likely to be monster 90x90ft trimarans.
On Thursday its home club, the Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC) said it had now proposed a conventional America's Cup in monohulls but that Alinghi had said no. GGYC said it hoped the teams would meet again soon.
"They started by saying they wanted multihull, now they want monohull. We have spent millions of euros on a multihull which is still under construction but ready to sail soon," Alinghi skipper Brad Butterworth told Reuters.
After two-hour talks between the two teams, Alinghi said it would be open to changes to the format, venue or date of the 33rd Cup and added the race could slip to 2011.
"If they or other teams need more time to prepare, we are more than happy to extend the time," four-times America's Cup winner Butterworth said.
The bickering between the two continued not just over the format but also whether the race should be in February or May 2010 and the arguments are unlikely to be fully settled fast.
The 33rd edition of the event was originally scheduled for this year to capitalise on the success of the 2007 event in Valencia, Spain -- the first in Europe since Queen Victoria watched the initial race in 1851.
The New York court, ending a near two-year dispute, found that Alinghi was wrong to accept a challenge from Club Nautico Espanol de Vela, a Spanish team that had been formed as a club just days before submitting its challenge.
By default, the governing rules, known as the Deed of Gift, say that the America's Cup must be held 10 months after the challenge, which would be May 1, 2010, according to Butterworth.
But Alinghi deemed other Oracle proposals unacceptable, including its latest request to sail a monocoque rather than multihulls, according to the native New Zealander.
Alinghi is backed by biotechnology billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli whose syndicate was created in landlocked Switzerland in 2000.
The team went on to win the 31st America's Cup in Auckland for the first time with a 5-0 win over Team New Zealand in 2003.
They successfully defended their Auld Mug trophy four years later in Valencia, Spain with another victory over Team New Zealand.
BMW-Oracle was represented by officials including its general counsel Melinda Erkelens, designer Manuel Ruiz and rules adviser Richard Slater, according to Butterworth.
"The atmosphere was cordial, there were no black eyes," he said.
(Source: Reuters)
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