America’s Cup venue tantrum disappointing
The New York Yacht Club’s impatience with the processes around the next America’s Cup has little justification.
The famous club has decided against contesting the next edition, citing frustrations around a lack of ‘‘clarity’’ from Team New Zealand over crucial structures for the 37th edition of yachting’s pinnacle event.
In reality, Team
New Zealand have missed one deadline – the September 17 date to announce the next venue, a diary entry that always looked ambitious given the desire by the defenders to take the event offshore and the complications of finding a suitable host under their demanding requirements.
Recent history shows finding a venue hasn’t always been a simple process.
After Alinghi beat Team New Zealand in 2003, they took 10 months to sort out Valencia for the 2007 regatta.
Defenders Oracle’s controversial decision to use a neutral venue for the 2017 Cup saw them make the challenging fleet wait for 15 months before announcing Bermuda on the back of their 2013 triumph in San Francisco.
Team New Zealand’s subsequent victory in Bermuda seemingly made Auckland an easy choice for 2021. Yet that process dragged out 14 months and almost saw a late switch to Italy before an 11th-hour reprieve saved the Kiwi hosting rights.
So, seven months on from the winning champagne spray at Auckland’s Viaduct Basin, Team New Zealand are tracking okay in the bigger scheme of things.
The venue is obviously important for planning, but it’s not as crucial for this round of action with confirmation
already given that the same class of boat, the radical AC75 foiling monohull, will be retained.
With venues under consideration in Ireland, Spain and Saudi Arabia, there will be variances in wind ranges, but the major design concepts will likely remain intact.
There is a far more important date looming, and New York have pulled out virtually on the eve of that.
It’s a day that has long been circled on the calendars of all potential teams. Just a day after Team New Zealand defeated Luna Rossa on March 17, they confirmed November 17 would be the day the protocol for the next America’s Cup would be announced.
It covers the rules and regulations for the regatta and Team New Zealand and Sir Ben Ainslie’s challenger of record Britannia have been diligently working to that deadline.
There is a genuine expectation from both that the vast document will be delivered on time, and it’s worth noting that in recent America’s Cups, the protocol revelation has preceded the venue announcement.
New York’s highhanded attitude is bemusing, coming from a club that set the tone of the winnertakes-all attitude engrained in 132 years of holding the Cup before Australia broke that stranglehold in 1983.
The prestige the famous club brings to the regatta will be missed, but not the accompanying baggage.
The cheek of releasing an alternative draft protocol in May – when they have no say in the running of the regatta as a well and truly beaten challenger in late January – defied belief.
Just as mystifying was the decision to jettison their American Magic team in July, replacing them with the unproven Stars + Stripes syndicate.
Now that budding team also find themselves looking for a new club to back their challenge.
The most pleasing news out of the US this past week was the commitment from American Magic and Stars + Stripes to stay in the game.
Right now, the America’s Cup needs them more than it needs the New York Yacht Club.
Time is always the greatest commodity in the Cup, and it is ticking by.
November 17 is looming on the countdown clock, and Team New Zealand will be hoping it can arrive without more dramas – maybe a tough prospect as whispers continue to swirl of potential legal action to see the Cup sailed in Auckland.
The prestige the famous club brings to the regatta will be missed, but not the baggage.