Americas Cup
The Royal Thames and the America’s Cup
The Royal Thames Yacht Club has had a long and close relationship with challengers for the America’s Cup. As many will be aware, the Cup is held and challenged for by yacht clubs, rather than the teams involved. The club that first won and then successfully defended the Cup for many years was the New York Yacht Club, the very first challenger being James Ashbury, who challenged under the burgee of the Royal Thames.
Since then the Club has been involved with a number of teams over the years. Our present partnership is with TEAMORIGIN, led by Club member Sir Keith Mills. With TEAMORIGIN, the Royal Thames submitted a formal challenge to Societé Nautique de Genève and Alinghi in 2007, but this fell away when the various court cases noted below led to the competition for the Cup being suspended.
We continue to be very confident about the abilities of the talented team assembled by Sir Keith Mills. On the sailing side this includes Mike Sanderson, Ben Ainslie, Iain Percy and many others with enormous experience at this level. There are also top yacht designers, sail makers, mast makers and others, in addition to the sailing crew.
Although they have not been racing AC boats in recent months, key members of the team have been kept sailing together on other projects, including racing the TEAMORIGIN TP52 around the European circuit, the Extreme 40 series (discussed below), and activities in larger yachts, similar to the likely AC90 class. TEAMORIGIN sailors are currently involved with the planned Virgin Money record breaking run in ‘Speedboat’, which aims to become the fastest yacht across the Atlantic.
There is now hope that the next America’s Cup competition will move ahead. However, to put everything into perspective it is useful to review developments over the last eighteen months. At the end of this section we give our appreciation of the present position, and also the latest news we have available from TEAMORIGIN.
Recent America’s Cup History
In 2007, after they had successfully defended the 32nd America’s Cup, the Alinghi team and their yacht club, the Societé Nautique de Genève (SNG) announced that the challenger of record for the 33rd America’s Cup in 2009 would be the newly-formed Spanish yacht club, Club Nautico Espanol de Vela (CNEV). CNEV agreed that Alinghi could set the protocol for the challengers for the 33rd Cup, including the design concept of a new 90ft monohull boat. In return, Alinghi agreed to keep the event in Valencia, while also retaining a high level of control over the event.
BMW Oracle Racing (Oracle) and the Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC) then challenged SNG and Alinghi in the New York Courts, saying that CNEV did not meet the requirements to be a challenger as defined by the original deed of gift. They also criticised the level of control that Alinghi had in general, and over CNEV, which would be acting as Challenger of Record on behalf of the other participating clubs and teams.
At the end of November 2007 Judge Cahn in New York ruled that CNEV was not a valid challenger and ordered Alinghi to negotiate with the GGYC who would become the new Challengers of Record. If no mutual agreement could be reached, then in January 2008 the judge would tell both parties what action they should take. It was anticipated that the outcome would be a “default match” sailed between the two parties under the old deed of gift (otherwise called a DOG match).
The judge did not rule on the timing, which led to more uncertainty and various interpretations, ranging from 10 months from the original Oracle challenge (July 2008), to 10 months from his court order (October 2008), or to early summer 2009. It was assumed by then that the racing would indeed be in catamarans 90 feet in length.
Following this ruling SNG and Alinghi appealed to the New York Supreme Court, although they claimed they would seek to work closely with GGYC in order to salvage the 33rd America’s Cup as a multi-challenger event. However, this appears not to have happened. For the appeal SNG appointed new lawyers who claimed that:
1. GGYC had not established that it has made a valid challenge
2. Even if GGYC were the Challenger of Record, the October 2008 date would not work in Valencia, the location that has been mutually agreed.
3. The NYSC should not set a date without a full appreciation of the “logistical nightmares” contained within the GGYC’s proposal.
In February 2008 Judge Cahn in New York concluded that Alinghi should be given enough time to respond to the challenge in multihulls, which implied that the 33rd America’s Cup would take place in Valencia in 2009. Subsequently Oracle unveiled a spectacular 90ft trimaran that has been undergoing sea trials off San Diego; it is rumoured that Alinghi has a similar craft in build in Europe.
By now all the teams had dramatically reduced their activities in Valencia as they no longer expected to challenge for the 33rd Cup.
In view of the multihull interest a number of the AC teams started competing in light, fast Extreme 40 catamarans. Many have taken part in the iShares Cup series that has run in key European locations, and was completed in September 2008 in Amsterdam. The series was just won by Alinghi in the last races in light airs, although TEAMORIGIN had been ahead on points for most of the summer.
Latest Situation
Monday 5th October, 2009
TEAMORIGIN, the British America’s Cup sailing team, today confirmed its entry in the new Louis Vuitton Trophy regatta to be held in Nice, France. This event, the first of a set of match race regattas, to be sailed in America’s Cup Class yachts, kicks off in Nice in five weeks time (7-22 November 2009) where eight teams from seven nations have so far entered and are expected to compete. The Louis Vuitton Trophy regattas then plan to move on to events in four other venues around the world in 2010.
TEAMORIGIN’s entry in the Louis Vuitton Trophy regattas rounds out the team’s extensive sailing programme for 2010, which also includes competing in the Audi MedCup series in TP52 race boats and the World Match Race Tour. The ‘Race for Change’ programme announced by the team two weeks ago in London presented the team’s strategic partnership with their Environmental Partner, the Carbon Trust, along with a compelling Partnership proposition to attract commercial partners.
“When looking at the sailing programme for the end of 2009 and 2010 we wanted to compete in the events that would give all parts of our team and not just the sailing team, further hands on operational experience,” said Sir Keith Mills, Team Principal.
“From the point of view of the Louis Vuitton Trophy regattas, we decided to become a preferential shareholder in the parent company, as well as to allow our America’s Cup training yacht, GBR-75, to be used as one of the race boats for the forthcoming Nice event. The Louis Vuitton Trophy regattas are owned by the teams themselves through the parent company, the World Sailing Team Association (WSTA), and are promoted and organised in association with Louis Vuitton and a local yacht club in a democratic and transparent manner. This is something we feel strongly about and we intend to play an active role in the management of the series,” concluded Sir Keith.
“With this arrangement our shore crew are actively involved in preparing and maintaining the boats and keeping the teams racing during the event and our management team are involved in the commercial and event management side of the project. This enhances TEAMORIGIN’s preparations for the America’s Cup”, commented Mike Sanderson, Team Director.
Each of the five Louis Vuitton Trophy regattas take the form of a match race event consisting of round robins, semi-finals and finals, similar to the format used at the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger races for the America’s Cup from 1983 to 2007. The races are sailed in America’s Cup Class boats provided by the organisation so that competing teams rotate through the pairs of boats as the event progresses.
“From a sailing point of view we have put together about as an ambitious a sailing programme as we could possibly want for an America’s Cup challenger in waiting. A combination of match racing in big boats at the Louis Vuitton Trophy regattas against some of the best teams in the world, plus a match race programme in smaller boats on the World Match Race Tour, along with competing in the fleet race keelboat series racing TP52s in the Audi MedCup. I cannot think of a better way to push the sailing and overall team to develop in areas that will benefit us for the long term,” commented Ben Ainslie, Skipper and Helmsman.
TEAMORIGIN is back on the water this week at the World Match Race Tour event in Hamilton, Bermuda (Argo Group Gold Cup) where the team of Ben Ainslie, Iain Percy, Christian Kamp and Matt Cornwell will race against 23 other teams in what promises to be a hotly contested event. Racing starts tomorrow on Tuesday 6th October and goes on until Sunday 11th October