Americans seek to rewrite the America's Cup rules
Everybody knows the America’s Cup winner makes the rules for the next event, creating a protocol following ‘focused and friendly negotiations’ with the Challenger of Record. For the 37th Cup, Emirates Team New Zealand will be deciding how, when and where the competition is run after agreement with INEOS Team UK. Right now, that is all TBC, to be published by 17 November.
But this hasn’t stopped the New York Yacht
Club putting forward not merely suggestions but a complete, detailed blueprint of every aspect of how they would like the Cup to be run. The NYYC issued a draft 154-page protocol released on 6 May, along with confirmation of its challenge for the next Cup. The draft defines every aspect, from entry costs to nationality rules, and proposes fixing budgets both annually and for each Cup cycle.
Perhaps most ambitiously, or impertinently, it sets out race schedules, dates and venues for every America’s Cup until 2039. The NYYC would like to see the next Cup raced in New Zealand in 2024, then Italy in 2027, the UK in 2030, the US in 2033, and from 2035 raced in the winner’s country on a two-yearly then an annual cycle.
It proposes setting up a commission chaired by the Defender ‘to be the permanent control and consulting body of the America’s Cup’. Corporations would be set up to manage the
‘We are delighted to hear that the New York Yacht Club is interested in continuing participation in the America’s Cup’
running of the regatta and its commercial arm.
Christopher J Culver, NYYC commodore, said: “The cost of a competitive campaign, the lack of continuity in the class and the inability to plan beyond the current cycle have combined to create a prohibitive barrier to entry.”
The draft protocol was met with silence from Emirates Team New Zealand and a polite but firm rebuttal from INEOS Team UK and the Royal Yacht Squadron. ‘We are working collaboratively with the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron and Team New Zealand to write the Protocol that will define the rules moving forward. We are delighted to hear that the New York Yacht Club are interested in continuing participation in the America’s Cup and we will keep them informed as we move forward,’ its statement read.
A MATCH IN THE UK?
The British team has proposed running a rapid turnaround match between the Defender and Challenger in the UK next year, involving or including a recreation of the original 1851 race around the Isle of Wight. Feasibility studies have already been done on this format for the 37th Cup. “It is something that has been tabled as a mechanism to get through this Covid world we have been battling through and looking at how do we get four years down the road,” says Ben Ainslie. “But in all honesty it is very much a distant idea. It is still leftfield thinking, given that the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron is still waiting for clarity from NZ government in terms of funding.”
Consensus has been easier to find on continuing with the AC75 designs. This has been agreed on as the class for at least the next two editions.
An agreement on budget restraints and nationality rules could also find common ground. But centralised governance, ie asking the winner to give away all the commercial rights? That is very unlikely to happen.
“It’s an admirable point to try to get to, though I don’t see it in this cycle,” Ainslie comments.
Other teams that have expressed an interest in challenging besides the NYYC’S American Magic are Luna Rossa, a Star & Stripes US team – and there are keen rumours that Ernesto Bertarelli might return to the fray with Alinghi.