that cost control was paramount. This Framework Agreement was signed by all the teams except Emirates Team New Zealand and would have seen the Cup con- tested on a two-year cycle in the same AC50 catamarans. It was of course as far away from the Patrizio Bertelli/Luna Rossa vision of the America’s Cup as you could get. In fact Sr Bertelli has played a blinder.
Once it was clear where the 35th Amer- ica’s Cup was heading he retrenched and threw his weight behind New Zealand. His contribution, along with that of their own longterm financial supporter and CEO Matteo de Nora, meant that Emirates Team New Zealand were ulti- mately both well staffed and better funded than many observers believed. The quid pro quo for this support was for Luna Rossa to be the Challenger of Record if New Zealand won, and equal partner in framing the Protocol and class rule. The Protocol for the next Cup will
not present insurmountable obstacles for teams wanting to enter. There will be more stringent nationality rules, the crews will be larger, there may be a scaled-back World Series, or none at all. This is the hammer blow for teams seeking to find substantial commercial sponsorship: what do you have to sell between now and the end of 2020? The Cup will be in 2021 and, with a new
Every team in Bermuda had lapses of control, but Team New Zealand (top) had fewer of them – even running very edgy foils. The Challenger Final against Artemis (above) was the hardest fight for the new Cup holders, especially as they were still working hard to improve their sailing performance. Artemis were floored by numerous errors which just further confirmed that these very high-performance boats were in reality being raced shorthanded by two sailors – three for the Kiwis. But even that’s hardly a rugby team
For the Mercury Bay Boating Club their
1988 challenge was a heroic failure and their 90ft waterline sloop was beaten by the 64ft catamaran of the San Diego Yacht Club. But as a result the San Diego YC was jolted into action and the boats changed from 12 Metres to the new AC Class (ACC) monohull which ran for five versions through to 2007 in Valencia. For the Golden Gate Yacht Club in
2010 their legal challenge was a specta - cular success. Reaching the Challenger Final, let alone the America’s Cup, had always proved beyond Oracle Team USA. After the 2007 Cup their legal team believed that the credentials of the Chal- lenger of Record did not comply with the requirements of the Deed of Gift. Over a period of 18 months they challenged Alinghi in the courts and won. Alinghi were obliged to race a Deed of
Gift Match against Oracle in Valencia in multihulls that were at the maximum 90ft waterline length limit. Alinghi chose a catamaran configuration, Oracle a tri- maran with 110ft floats! Once the wing sail was fitted this boat was pretty much unbeatable on the long offshore courses (by this point Alinghi owner Ernesto Bertarelli had also largely lost interest in
44 SEAHORSE
fighting off what he regarded as a ‘win at all costs’ challenge and decided against building a wing rig of his own – ed). Having finally won the Cup with skilful
legal work and massively innovative naval architecture, Oracle were now able to shift the boats from monohulls to multihulls and subsequently hosted a spectacular defence in San Francisco. But of course it takes desire and commitment at every level to sustain a prolonged defence of the America’s Cup. I haven’t seen the accounts but I expect
that by the time the Cup was won in San Francisco the aggregate Oracle spend on the America’s Cup could be approaching one billion dollars… this amount of money would get even Larry Ellison’s attention. Oracle were obliged to defend the Cup
in 2017, but now they had a tighter budget and a clear mandate to the commercial team to make as much money as possible. The aim was to successfully defend the Cup at minimum cost. Hence the venue going to the highest bidder, Bermuda, and an essentially one-design class with a small crew to minimise costs. Oracle were also enthusiastic supporters
of the subsequently drafted Framework Agreement but always on the understanding
class coming and a limit on how many hulls can be built, there won’t be any boats to race before 2020. The Cup itself will run for a longer period, unencumbered by the demands of live television. So far so good, but what will the boats themselves look like? The class rule will not be published with
the Protocol. It will be several months before we know what boats will be sailed. Notwithstanding the mooted agreement to go back to monohulls it won’t be the ACC catamaran used in Bermuda. While they were impressive the foiling catamarans were immensely complicated, expensive and time consuming to maintain. This is OK for a racing car, where every-
one knows that when you look under the bonnet of a modern car you have no idea what is going on but you know it’s cool and clever, and reassuringly expensive. For a racing yacht none of this compli-
cation seems appropriate. Our sport is about challenging wind, wave and tide, and this of itself is complication enough. If you add in 30 hydraulic actuators and half a million lines of computer code does this add to the spectacle? The boats were miserable to sail for
two-thirds of the crew, slaving over the pumps to keep the hydraulic fluid flowing. For the helmsman and wing trimmer it was heart in the mouth stuff as the penalty for a small error was a race loss, and in winds over 20kt, even in the Great Sound, there was a real risk of serious injury if anything went wrong. These boats could not be safely raced in the Hauraki Gulf, Newport RI or the Solent, ie just the sort of places the Deed of Gift envisaged.
CHRISTOPHE FAVREAU/DPPI
INGRID ABERY
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