Draper "deserted" to the Italian Luna Rossa syndicate in the winter to join a well-financed team. His successor Outteridge, the current Olympic champion in the 49er, who, like Draper, was able to celebrate respectable successes with the Korean team in the America's Cup World Series, seems to want to do the same. However, he doesn't have much choice, with only Team New Zealand and Artemis Racing, the official challenger, remaining.
The Koreans, who have forked out the hefty 200,000 dollar entry fee for the next Cup, want to continue to take part in the ACWS and have named Peter Burling from New Zealand, who is only 21 years old and took silver in the 49er behind Outteridge at the last Olympic Games, as his successor.
If Korean team boss Dong-Yong Kim does indeed cancel his squad's participation in the AC34 next year, as rumoured in Cup circles, it will probably be for cost reasons. A reasonably competitive team with an AC72 wing cat is said to have around 100 million US dollars on the line. Regardless of this, Team Korea emphasised in a press release that they intend to compete in the next ACWS event on the small AC45 cats in San Francisco on 4 October.
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