Update
IN CASABLANCA – Jack Griffin The narrator of the opening scene from the 1942 classic tells us about the unfortunates who ‘… wait in Casablanca. And wait. And wait. And wait.’ Often it feels as if it was easier to get an exit visa from Casablanca than to get America’s Cup news. When and where will the 2020 AC World Series regattas be held?
We’ve known for over a year that the first will be in Cagliari, 23-26 April 2020. The Defender and the Challenger of Record met the protocol-imposed deadline of 30 November 2019 to choose the venues for the two additional 2020 regattas. But they did not bother to tell the public which venues they chose. It’s a well-known secret that Portsmouth and Auckland are the
likely suspects. The protocol required the venues, but not the dates, to be announced by 30 November. At the time of writing there seems to be some to-ing and fro-ing about the Portsmouth event. Unlike Rick’s Café Américain, not everyone wants to go there. The protocol requires the Defender/COR to ‘agree upon and
finalise’ by 20 December 2019 the Match Conditions, including the Notice of Race. Here in Casablanca we must wait to see if the Defender/COR publish anything… Chief umpire Richard Slater has been doing a yeoman’s job
posting documents on the official noticeboard on the Cup website. Let’s hope the D/COR give him the green light to post the Match Conditions. We might find out if there will be wind limits, and if there are any restrictions on foil usage. The AC75 Class Rule required the rules committee to finalise any restrictions on Foil Cant System (FCS) use by 30 November 2019. The D/COR chose highly respected experts for the three-person rules committee: Stan Honey (USA, chair), Carlos Beltran (ESP) and Hasso Hoffmeister (GER). With the late launches of the yachts, there might not have been
enough experience from the four teams to allow the rules committee to issue any meaningful restrictions. Luna Rossa skipper Max Sirena has previously said that pre-starts will bring back the circling we
14 SEAHORSE
used to have in the leadmine days. The racing in Cagliari will almost certainly be all match racing, rather than fleet racing. In Cagliari we will see what pre-start tactics the teams choose and whether they include circling. As we wait for more AC news other events are showcasing the
top AC sailors. The Star Sailors League held their seventh(!) annual finals regatta in Nassau in early December. Iain Percy teamed with Anders Eckström to take the title, over a stellar field of Olympic medallists and world champions. A year ago Percy was in Nassau, but missed two days of qualifying
when he jetted off to Malta to meet the phantom Maltese challenge for the 2021 Cup. Percy previously toiled with the underfunded +39 America’s Cup syndicate in Valencia in 2007. He then planned to team up with Ben Ainslie and Team Origin for the 2009 AC, until Larry Ellison and Ernesto Bertarelli locked horns in the New York courts, scuttled the 2009 event, and then held a Deed of Gift grudge match in 2010. Percy was snapped up by Artemis Racing for the 2013 San Francisco America’s Cup and led the 2017 Artemis challenge for AC35 in Bermuda. Meanwhile, Emirates Team New Zealand helmsman Peter Burling
took the 2019 49er World Championship with his ace crew and ETNZ teammate Blair Tuke. The pair will (again) be the team to beat at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Burling’s former training partner, 2012 49er gold medallist
Nathan Outteridge, helmed Artemis Racing in San Francisco and Bermuda. Left with no AC ride when Artemis owner Torbjörn Törnqvist turned his nose up at the AC75 and the 2021 Cup, Outteridge has teamed with his sister Haylee in the Nacra 17, aiming for Tokyo 2020. He is also skipper of SailGP Japan and finished second to Tom Slingsby’s all-Australian crew in the inaugural season. Joining Outteridge and Slingsby on the 2020 SailGP circuit will
be Ben Ainslie and Ineos Team UK. With a paucity of racing in the AC World Series, Ineos will hone their skills in the fast, foiling F50s. The second SailGP season kicks off in Sydney in February.
MARTINA ORSINI
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