America's Cup- Announcement in Rome next week - Updated

by Richard Gladwell on 30 Apr 2010
An announcement will be made in Rome, next week on arrangements for the 34th America's Cup. In a brief joint statement the Challenger, Club Nautico de Roma (ITA) and the Defender, Golden Gate Yacht Club (USA) advised that the Press Conference would be held on 6 May 2010.

The venue for the Press Conference has now been named as the Musei Capitolini, Rome at noon local time. The event will be live streamed on the internet.

Indications are that the 34th America's Cup will be staged in San Francisco, probably in monohulls sometime in 2014.

Currently there is only one Challenger for the trophy which was won by Golden Gate Yacht Club in February 2010, after an acrimonious legal saga spanning over two years and culminating in a decisive win for Larry Ellison's BMW Oracle Racing, sailing the wingsailed USA-17.

Since that time the Defender has been committed to a process of consultation with the prospective Challengers. Nothing concrete has been publicly revealed of that process, or the state of progress, which has been likened to watching the progress of a bus in a traffic jam.

The Notice of Challenge for the 34th America's Cup has not been publicly released, however it is expected that the next America's Cup will be conducted under the Mutual Consent provisions of the 19th century Deed of Gift, which means that anything that is contained in the Notice of Challenge can be altered by the Challenger and Defender, provided both agree.

While a formal protocol is not expected to be announced on 6 May the Press Conference could take one of two forms:

(a) the basic parameters of the Match, prescribed by the Deed of Gift, being the dates, type and size of yacht and preferred venue may be revealed,

Or, (b) the announcement will be confined to outlining the consultation process that will be followed with interested parties.

The window under which entries will be accepted and timeframes for entry could be announced if the first format is followed. This period could be open for a year or two. The objective of this phase has previously been to identify potential participants and then embrace those clubs into a process to determine the conditions under which the Challenger Selection Series and Defence will be conducted.

If the second option is followed, which is now expected to be the case, then the consultation timeline will be set out.

Whichever process is followed the outcome will be largely the same - that the Challenger group and Defender will work together to construct the framework under which the 34th America's Cup and its preliminaries will be conducted. The announcement on 6 May will determine the starting point down that track.

For the six months or so, that Alinghi conducted the multi challenger and mutual consent process during the 33rd America's Cup, up to 20 clubs were involved and several different sizes of yacht were contemplated - all to be designed to a 'box rule' outlining basic dimensions into which the yacht must 'fit' as opposed to a strict design rule as used for the America's Cups from 1992 to 2007.

The multi challenger approach was stopped by then Defender, Societe Nautique de Geneve, after the Court of Appeal in New York state upheld the Appeal from Golden Gate Yacht Club, and deemed the US club to be the proper Challenger ahead of the challenge accepted by the discredited Club Nautico de Vela.

Part of the process adopted during that multi challenger phase was to allow the Challengers to select the size of the boat (which the Challenger is required to do under the Deed of Gift) and it is expected that a similar process will be followed for the 34th America's Cup. That being so, a multihull is unlikely because of the perceived advantage that Golden Gate would have with that type of inshore racing technology.

A point of interest, which may be announced/consulted, is the involvement of Louis Vuitton, who walked away from an involvement in the 33rd America's Cup after being unhappy with their treatment during the 32nd (2007) Challenger Selection Series. Since then the French company has established the Louis Vuitton Trophy series. It is expected that this series will somehow be embraced by the 34th America's Cup, as a selection prelude to the Louis Vuitton Cup, currently held by the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron.

In mid April, the longest standing America's Cup team, Emirates Team New Zealand announced an entry in the Volvo Ocean Race, and Alinghi is expected to do the same. Both teams have won the America's Cup twice, and are clearly the premier teams in a multi challenger event.

While Emirates Team New Zealand are keeping their options open with participation in the Louis Vuitton Trophy, Alinghi has not participated, aside from the Auckland event in 2009, as payola for the dropping of a lawsuit against them by Emirates Team New Zealand.

The balance of the challengers are expected to come from new teams, many of which formed for the 33rd America's Cup, but had not actually participated in a Challenger Selection Series, nor contested an America's Cup. The 2014 date is believed to suit them well to allow them to catch up with the established teams and their infrastructure, if indeed the likes of Alinghi, in fact choose to enter the 34th America's Cup.