Millennium Cup details announced in Auckland

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World on 20 Nov 2008
The Marine Industry was, tonight, briefed on the details of the Millennium Cup to be staged during the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series in February 2009.

Organisation for the event is coming together very quickly, with work that took 18 months in 2000 and 2003 now taking just one month.

The event will be styled along the line of the Millennium Cups which took place during the 30th and 31st America's Cups and again at Plama, Majorca in 2007.

An event website is running www.millenniumcup.com which will contain updated news and organisational information.

The Millennium Cup will start on 8 February with a race Briefing and Cocktail evening and run through to the prizegiving on 11th February. There will be two or three days of pursuit racing on the 9,10 and 11 February 2009.

The yachts will be based in the Viaduct Basin close to the Louis Vuitton Village, or at Bayswater opposite the Village.

To date there have been two confirmed entries and a further three verbal entries, with the expectation that eight to 12 yachts will take part. At this stage the event is being restricted to superyachts 30metres or longer.

The Cup will be run in two sections for Sailing Yachts and Motor Yachts. the Sailing Yachts will sail pursuit races (Mark Foy system), while Motor Yachts will undertake Passage races. All events will start and finish in the Waitemata Harbour.

All racing will be organised by the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron

The theme of the 2009 Millenium Cup will be more casual than previous editions, with the emphasis on being part of the Louis Vuitton Pacific series.

For the industry a range of sponsorship packages is offered and already several of these have been taken up, details of the packages and benefits can be found on the Millennium Cup website.

Only one Platinum sponsorship is left, with three being allocated to Integrated Marine Group, www.southernspars.com!Southern_Spars and Alloy Yachts. Events Clothing is the first of eight Gold Sponsors.

Further enquiries can be made to pacificseries@millenniumcup.com