At a press conference in Barcelona, the America's Cup Management (ACM) presented the new rules for the class and the schedule until the next Cup.
AC90 will be the name of the new boats sailing for the 33rd Americas Cup. As the name suggests, they are 90 feet (27.4 metres) long, a good metre longer than the yachts in the last competition. At up to 6.5 metres, the draught of the new ships is also considerably greater than that of the old generation of AC yachts (4.1 metres).
Surprisingly, the new ships will not be any heavier. On the contrary, with a total weight of 23 tonnes, they will actually be one tonne lighter. However, with almost 50 per cent more sail area rigged on the almost 38 metre high mast, the AC90s will be real powerhouses compared to the ACC 55. No wonder that more sailors are needed for such hammer machines. According to the new rules, a maximum of 20 professionals will be allowed. The crew weight limit has been cancelled due to the power of these boats.
As far as the organisation of the Cup is concerned, the ACM has already developed precise ideas.
1. initially, all participants (including defending champion Alinghi) are to sail in either match-race or fleet-race mode within three acts (end of June 2008 in Valencia with ACC V5, September 2008 somewhere in Europe with ACC V5 and April 2009 in Valencia with AC90). The teams do not take any points from these acts into the next rounds. However, the winning team and the second-placed team will be allowed to use two or one sails more than the other participants in the upcoming regattas in addition to the 45 sails permitted.
2. the trials follow, which are sailed in round robins (including Alinghi). The best six teams will progress to the Trials Semi-Finals. The four remaining yachts will sail the Challenger Sail Off in fleet-race mode (so that they can continue to present their sponsors).
The best of the six yachts is already seeded for the Challenger Selection Final (the Louis Vuitton Cup Final, so to speak; in late June 2009).
3. the second and third places from the Trials Semi-Finals will now sail out their winner. The winner will then be the second boat in the Challenger Selection Final.
The loser of this match will sail with the losers of the semi-finals (i.e. 4th, 5th and 6th place; whereby the Alinghi will in any case provide one of these boats) only for the sponsor presentation or the table rank.
4 Finally, Alinghi will compete against the winner of the Challenger Selection Final in match-race mode from 18 July.
