Alinghi to race in Valencia
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Alinghi sailing team will face its challenger BMW-Oracle in Valencia, Spain, in the best of three races in February 2010. Société Nautique de Genève (SNG), the Geneva, Switzerland sailing club that Alinghi represents, says that the Golden Gate Yacht Club, which is represented by BMW-Oracle, has not replied to its suggestion a week ago that the race be held in waters off the east coast of Australia. Thus the only other venue open to it legally, in order to comply with the February date, is Valencia.
BMW-Oracle with mast, photo by Gilles Martin-Raget
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Team Alinghi has suggested a venue for the 33rd America’s Cup race with challenger BMW-Oracle off the coast of Australia, in order “unlock” the race and “return the competition to the water”. The announcement 5 November comes a day before a hearing in the New York Supreme Court scheduled to determine whether Alinghi’s favoured venue in Ras al-Khaimah, United Arab Emirates will be upheld by the court.
Justice Shirley Kornreich had ruled 27 October that Alinghi must choose a southern hemisphere location or Valencia, Spain for the race in February. The ongoing legal battle between the two teams threatened to postpone the actual race. Alinghi appealed that decision.
Alinghi in less contentious waters. Photo: © Dinah Roberts
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The oldest, most prestigious sailing competition may be decided in a New York courtroom instead of in the Persian Gulf waters off the Arabian peninsula. The defending team Alinghi, representing Geneva’s Société Nautique de Genève (SNG) put their huge catamaran into the water off Ras al-Khaimah (RAK), United Arab Emirates Saturday 17 October, but a New York judge must still decide whether the venue, traditionally chosen by the defender, may be allowed to stand.
On Saturday, Ernesto Bertarelli, the billionaire backer of Alinghi, called on the BMW-Oracle team to get down to business and start sailing.
Alinghi 5, warming up to the America's Cup 2010, in Genoa, Italy 17 August 2009 (© 2009 Carlo Borlenghi/Alinghi)
Geneva, Switzerland/New York, USA (GenevaLunch) - The details of the boat BMW will be sailing in the 2010 America’s Cup race do not have to be divulged until two weeks before the race, a judge in New York has said.
The New York Supreme Court announced a verdict 22 September that went against the Société Nautique de Genève, home to the Alinghi team, and holder of the America’s Cup sailing trophy. It rejected Alinghi’s claim to disqualify the Oracle team from the 2010 America’s Cup race because, Alinghi told the court, the Golden Gate Yacht Club, represented by Oracle, had not provided, by the deadline, the required technical details concerning Oracle’s boat. The court agreed with Oracle, which had argued that a boat undergoes constant technical modifications until the moment it begins to compete.
In her ruling, Supreme Court Judge Shirley Kornreich nevertheless scolded the Oracle team for “unsportsmanlike behaviour” which “resulted in substantially reducing SNG’s (Société Nautique de Genève) advantage as originally contemplated by the Deed of Gift.”
BMW Oracle 90 foot trimaran, sea trials in Washington, USA, 13 August 2009. Photographer: Gilles Martan-Raget
Both teams remain committed to begin the race in February 2010.
The judge’s decision comes on the heels publication of a previously confidential agreement between SNG and the International Sailing Federation (ISAF).
