America's Cup: "Worse than ever before"

Jochen Schümann's judgement is devastating: "No one has ever done as badly as the Americans in the Cup!" The two-time America's Cup winner doesn't know whether to laugh or cry when he sees the protocol for the 35th America's Cup published on 3 June.

The 78-page document, which the sailing world has been waiting more than half a year for, provides plenty of material for discussion. For example, a provision that allows the American defenders to build two of the new AC-62 catamarans, while the challengers are only allowed to build one boat. When discussing this, Jochen Schümann laughs out loud: "They obviously want to sail alone - and win."

Schümann also criticises the defenders' participation in the challenger round - formerly known as the Louis Vuitton Cup. This move has always been considered taboo in the 163-year history of the Cup. But Larry Ellison's racing team is not deterred. The Americans have cheerfully conceded the opportunity to get involved in the challengers' battle to qualify for the play-offs for the top four challenger teams - and thus also the opportunity to influence the results. "They could eliminate opponents in the challenger round or wave others through, in other words have a direct influence on the results. You can only shake your head at that."

Schümann also laments the many unanswered questions: "How can you set the registration deadline for challengers for August 2014 and at the same time take the liberty of not announcing the venue until the end of December at the latest?" The challengers have to pay around 1.23 million euros in registration fees for the dubious pleasure of participating in the Cup. It remains unclear how the regattas of the preceding America's Cup World Series will be categorised and where they will take place.

Larry Ellison's Oracle Team USA has retained all its decision-making freedom with the new set of rules and at the same time given itself the perfect pole position for the defence of the America's Cup once again. The applause from the sailing world is limited. Skipper Jimmy Spithill announced what the protocol largely reveals anyway: "It's the America's Cup. And you don't win that easily. But we want the hat-trick."

Although the new basic rules contain innovative ideas, they are too one-sided in favour of the defenders. "It confirms all the prejudices. It's almost impossible to go into the America's Cup as a new challenger with at least some basic confidence," says Schümann.

Mat Belcher takes a completely different view of the starting position. The skipper of the Australian Challenger of Record (the defenders' negotiating partner in formulating the protocol) says: "We are confident that the 35th America's Cup will surpass previous editions in almost every area: more challengers, exciting new boats and a competition structure that will engage and excite people over a three-year period." It would be nice if Belcher were right.

It is also not extraordinarily difficult to outdo the only three challengers from the last edition in terms of numbers. Whether the competition structure will work for the hoped-for participants will become clear in 2015. That's when the teams are due to start the world series. Until then, there is little time to raise the necessary budgets in the absence of relevant framework data. The races are likely to be exciting with regard to the tried and tested AC-45 catamarans and the new 62-footers. However, as last time, the latter will once again be prototypes, which the challengers, unlike the defenders, will only have one attempt to build. Anyone who gets it wrong or has a serious breakage is out of the game.

The defenders themselves are officially asking with the publication of the protocol: "Who is ready for the challenge?" Under the circumstances, the sailing world is also keen to find out. Karol Jablonski, Louis Vuitton Cup semi-finalist in 2007 and in action this week in Match Race Germany on Lake Constance, said: "It has always been difficult to snatch the America's Cup from the defenders and win it, but now it is virtually impossible."

EndFragment