Valencia maritime authority keeps America's Cup VIP's ashore

by Richard Gladwell. Sail-World.com on 10 Feb 2010
The Valencia maritime authority has caused a major kerfuffle by restricting luxury craft hired to take corporate VIP's to operating just six nautical miles of the Spanish coastline.

BMW Oracle Racing has hired three large, internationally certified, luxury motoryachts to take out several dozen corporate guests, all of whom are top executives with leading international companies. Other groups involved with the America's Cup are understood to be similarly affected.

One of the luxury yachts is owned by Eddie Jordan, former owner of the Jordan Formula 1 motor racing team. Jordan is said to be very disappointed with the Spanish bureaucrat's decision and actions.

Valencia fought keenly to host the 33rd America's Cup, which has attracted huge media and public attention, expecting to view an event that will be unique in yachting history.

BMW Oracle Racing have a major and very impressive hospitality effort under-way, in Valencia, which has been thwarted in the last few days by the local maritime bureaucracy. Sail-World has sighted a letter authorising 'The Snapper' to operate as a charter vessel up to 25nm offshore, the outer limit of the America's Cup course. However by the afternoon that authorisation was changed, restricting her to just 6nm offshore - a distance from which the racing is not visible. It was later claimed that the original authorisation of 25nm was an error, later corrected to 6nm.

One group of high profile guests have already been on the water, on the first scheduled Race Day only to find they were restricted to hugging the Spanish coastline and left very disappointed. The startline for the event is actually located in international waters, however the Valencia maritime authority has jurisdiction up to 14nm offshore, and the skippers of the yachts will not risk action against them or their vessels, if they broke the restriction.

The Match between the wingsailed 113ft trimaran entered by BMW Oracle Racing, owned by software magnate, Larry Ellison, listed fourth on the World Rich List, and the 115ft catamaran entered by Team Alinghi owned by Swiss billionaire, Ernesto Bertarelli, is attracting intense interest in the sailing world, after over 30 months of bitter wrangling in the New York courts.

To rub salt in the Mediterranean wound, the same authority, El Capitan Martimo has allowed two 'supporter' boats to voyage right out to the start area, 25nm offshore - even though these craft are clearly of of a lesser size than the corporate yachts.

As reported earlier, Sail-World counted 65 vessels in the vicinity of the starting area, on Monday, of which just a dozen were unflagged spectator boats. All others were carrying numbered Privilege Flags, and were associated with America's Cup teams, active and inactive. Privilege Flags are commonly used in America's Cup competition to denote areas in which vessels are allowed to operate during racing.

The motor yachts hired by BMW Oracle and bought Valencia especially for the regatta, are some of the largest in the Darcena, the inner harbour at Port America's Cup, Valencia. They are all certified by the Maritime Coastguard Authority (MCA) an internationally recognised certification body, and are able to operate far offshore, including transoceanic delivery voyages.

The decision of El Capitan Martimo is even more baffling, given the hoops through which the City of Valencia had to jump to obtain hosting of the most prestigious regatta in sailing. The City is believed to have invested about 8million Euros to generate publicity for the City from the event, to which over 600 media have been accredit. Attracting a large number of high profile leaders of the corporate world to Valencia, is very difficult to achieve, and it seems that their only real taste of the America's Cup will be obtained from the outstanding hospitality ashore of the US Challenger.

The matter is understood to be at a complete impasse, with the official involved refusing to alter his decision.