2001 - a yachting odyssey pt2

"It is with great regret that the Management Committee of the Admiral's Cup have decided not to run the 2001 series.The Management Committee had agreed that for the event to continue there had to be at least four national teams plus one recognised country grouping team. The Notice of Race called for Challenges to be logged by 2nd April 2001, and on this date only France and the UK were confirmed entries. The Committee therefore had little option but to cancel the series," a RORC spokesman said at the time.

Later RORC announced that they would be running a one-design regatta from 19 to 22 July. Classes invited included the Farr 52s, IC45s, Sydney 40s, Farr 40s, Mumm 30s and other classes if they had sufficient numbers.

RORC's David Minords told madfor sailing: "It's very sad and upsetting, but we must accept that all formats come to an end. We look forward to resurrecting an Admiral's Cup that is relevant to today's market. All these things are cyclical."

It was also a bad month for the Soling.

Their bid to be reinstated in the Olympics was dealt a fatal blow when members of the ISAF council voted 29 to eight that no further discussion should take place.

This effectively ensured that the Olympic classes decided upon at last year's meeting in Edinburgh would definitely be the only ones taking part at Athens in 2004.

Describing the actions of the Soling class as "a very intense and intimidating campaign to re-open the selection", ISAF chief Paul Henderson must have been mightily relieved that "the most negative situation I have encountered in 30 years of service to ISAF", had been resolved without need for further combat action.

Meanwhile Oracle Racing were having their own crisis. Bill Erkelens commented on behalf of Larry Ellison's America's Cup challenge, "We have over 100 people working in our company and four people have left. That is just normal operating of a business."

The rumours appear to have started following the departure of Bob Billingham. Billingham was a key member of Paul Cayard's One America shore team in the last America's Cup and was to have taken on a similar role in Oracle Racing. The Oracle Racing spokesman suggested that Billingham's departure was as the result of "a review of operations within the Oracle Racing team which established a need to refocus our activities." In addition to Billingham, three other shore crew members, Brad Fitzgerald, Marc Cosby and Don Anderson departed the team.

But it wasn't long before La Trinitaine-Team Ethypharm suffered a collision and started to take on water in her port float. Skipper Marc Guillemot made the decision to have the crew airlifted off. Jean le Cam's new Bonduelle has also damaged her port float but she is being sailed back to France. This left just five boats racing and in the end Ellen MacArthur and Alain Gautier, came from fourth place to pip the others at the post at the finish off Tarragona, Spain.