The trouble with the planning for the 35th America's Cup continues. The challengers are dissatisfied with the policy of the defenders and criticised the early deadlines and the selection of possible venues at a summit meeting in Los Angeles. In addition to the defenders from Oracle Team USA, representatives of the teams from New Zealand, Australia, France, Italy and Great Britain took part in the meeting. The main topic was some controversial conditions in the recently published and now outdated protocol for the 35th America's Cup.
The small US summit was initiated by Ian Murray, Managing Director of the Challenger of Record at Hamilton Island Yacht Club. The most important findings from the meeting: Bermuda is highly controversial as a possible venue among the challengers, especially among those teams that are dependent on business partners and would like a bigger public stage than the island paradise. Prada, for example, would like to promote its products and sell them locally. The chances of this happening in Bermuda are likely to be much smaller than in one of the major American harbour cities.
Some challengers threatened to pull out if Bermuda was selected as the Cup venue. At the same time, the majority of teams could not warm to San Diego either. Bermuda and San Diego are the last two possible venues on the gradually shortening list of defenders. The discussions also centred on the controversial cancellation of San Francisco, which had served the 34th America's Cup well as a venue.
The defenders' plans to hold the qualifying regatta in a different venue to the Cup duel itself were sharply criticised. According to the Scuttlebutt news service, the challengers emphasised that such a constellation would significantly increase the teams' costs.
The challengers also fail to understand the planned replacement of the International Jury by a so-called Arbitration Panel. This move would result in the exclusion of the World Sailing Federation (Isaf). The enormously high entry fee of three million US dollars, which has to be paid by the end of the year for participation and insurance, is also causing outrage.
In England, the daily newspaper "The Independent" reported that sailing darling Sir Ben Ainslie is finding the tight time frames in his negotiations with potential partners a heavy burden. Other challengers feel the same way. Challenges for the 35th America's Cup must be submitted by 8 August this year, although the venue is not expected to be announced until the autumn. The British are not the only ones who find it extremely difficult to raise up to 63 million pounds for an event whose venue is unknown.
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
