Faultlines put Cup’s future at stake
The stormy weather that put paid to Saturday’s opening day of racing at the 35th America’s Cup had passed through by yesterday morning, leaving Bermuda resplendent in sunshine once again and ready to get down to the serious business of qualifying.
The undercurrents that threaten to drag this Cup into a bare-knuckle fight between Emirates Team NZ and defenders Oracle Team USA will be harder to shake. They have been bubbling beneath the surface for some time now; the legacy of years of sniping and mistrust between the America’s Cup’s two biggest beasts, its two finalists from 2013.
The way that 34th Cup in San Francisco ended, with the Americans coming back from 8-1 down to win 9-8, left a bitter taste in the mouths of many Kiwis, a taste which has only soured with time.
Disputes over the venues for the America’s Cup World Series events (New Zealand did not get to host one), class rules, redress rules — basically the way in which the entire Cup is run and the direction it is headed.
The so-called “framework agreement” announced this year — a road map for the way forward based on a biennial Cup cycle, with the class rules agreed in advance — was signed by five of the six teams. The lone sheep? New Zealand.
“It’s definitely not ideal but at the same time having the other five teams agreeing to a deal is a massive step forward,” said Sir Russell Coutts, who as chief executive of both Oracle Team USA and the event authority is the man with his hand on the tiller.
“The America’s Cup has never had even that level of consensus before.”
Coutts, of course, is New Zealand’s former skipper extraordinaire; at the helm in their historic 1995 victory in San Diego.
The 55 year-old oversaw the Kiwis’ successful defence in Auckland in 2000 before jumping ship, first to Swiss high rollers Alinghi, then to Oracle, where he has masterminded successive Cup victories.
With a 15-0 record at the helm in America’s Cup finals matches, Coutts achieved legendary status as a sailor. But now he represents a polarising figure back in his homeland; accused of stacking the chips in favour of Oracle and their ‘ cosy club’ of supporters, which includes Sir Ben Ainslie’s Land Rover BAR.
Coutts cannot fathom this point of view, and neither can the other teams. From where he is standing, Oracle and their owner, billionaire software mogul Larry Ellison, have done more than any syndicate in history to open up the America’s Cup to competitors; reducing costs, building a commercially sustainable structure which is attractive to sponsors and partners alike.
The framework agreement was intended to give teams stability, allowing them to negotiate with sponsors, partners and broadcasters ahead of time, knowing in advance what the next Cup would look like.
In the past, the defenders would spend 12 months deciding on what they wanted to do with the Cup, in which time potential deals fell by the wayside and sailors and engineers got on with their lives.
“They have obviously got their reasons,” says Coutts, who picks his words carefully, clearly anxious not to antagonise his New Zealand counterpart, Grant Dalton, any further. “But of course it’s disappointing.”
The situation is fascinatingly poised. If one of the “framework teams” wins through to the final Cup match, the likelihood is it will continue along the pathway laid out in the agreement (although, as Coutts acknowledges, there would still be a delay with the Kiwis refusing to play ball).
If Team NZ, with their pedal power and commitment to doing things differently, potentially returning the Cup to monohulls and basing it in Auckland, win through, the stakes in the final will be that much higher.
The move to foiling cats, the twoyear cycle, the rolling World Series in cup class boats . . . all of it could be thrown up in the air again.
“If they won, they would definitely want another great event,” Coutts says. “I think they would think very carefully. They’ve said they would do things differently but they’d still want it to be a great event. The real answer is, though, I don’t know [what they would do with it]. What I do know is, if practice racing is anything to go by, this is shaping up to be the most exciting America’s Cup ever.”
The stakes could not be higher.