A Midsummer Night's Dream

As 2004 America's Cup regattas are announced and unexpected new challenger comes out of the woodwork

A big night in Paris yesterday saw the announcement of the three America's Cup pre-regattas as well as that of the first formally accepted challenger (besides Oracle BMW Racing) for the 2007 America's Cup.

Of all this news, the Italian challenger was the biggest surprise. While France has three prospective challengers in the old guard at Le Defi, Dawn Riley and Thierry Peponnet at K-Yachting and Loick Peyron and (possibly) Bertrand Pace's Team France, Italy now has four prospectives plus, as of last night, one definite challenger.

Patrizio Bertelli now seems to be back in action with Francesco de Angelis and a third Prada challenge, the team having recently moved into a new base in Valencia. Vincenzo Onorato is adamant he will be in Valencia come 2007 with a new Mascalzone Latino team led by Vasco Vascotto. After a flurry of activity back in November when they announced their purchase of Stars & Stripes' 2002/3 generation Cup boats and a whole roster of crew led by Terry Hutchinson and Karol Jablonski and including Britain's Adrian Stead, the claims made by the Toscana Challenge appear to have been much exaggerated. In addition to these there is said to be another challenger based in Naples.
Klan Des Team - a good Euro joke based on no one supposedly knowing about them until today - differ from the other challengers in that they have fulfilled all obligations laid down in the Terms of Challenge for the 32rd America's Cup. This includes proof that their challenging club, in this case the Lake Garda-based Circolo Vela Gargnano, hold at least one regatta a year on open water (ie not an Italian lake), plus some serious payments: a performance bond of 1 million Euros that will be cashed should the team prove to be a no-show come the Cup in 2007, 50,000 Euros to the Challenger Commission (effectively the Challengers' union) and US$ 25,000 to America's Cup Properties who protect AC copyright.



At present the only name associated with the team is Lorrenzo Riccardi who is both President of the Circolo Vela Gargnano and the syndicate head. Whether any of the crew of their incredible Libera class boat, also called Clan Des Team, will be included in the Cup teams remains to be seen. Helm of this boat is Oscar Tonoli, while Michele Ivaldi and Lorenzo Mace also sail on board, and seeing as they are ex-Prada sailors with previous Cup experience we would hazard a guess that they might be. How the campaign will be funded is also unclear at this stage, although one of their partners may be the region of Lombardy, the main sponsor of the team's Libera class boat.

Unexpected in the race announcements was firstly there being no regatta this year in Naples. Three regattas were expected this year the first in Valencia, following by Naples and Marseilles. Instead Marseilles is to hold the first followed by two in the Cup venue. Maybe Cascais and Naples will have their turn in 2005.

Equally unexpected was the mixture of fleet racing and match racing. Marseilles will include a mixture of fleet racing and match racing, while the second event in Valencia in October will only be a fleet race series. A fleet race for the Cup boats is to be held in Valencia prior to the Louis Vuitton Challenger series in 2007, and clearly America's Cup Management believe all the ACC boats taking to the race course simultaneously will be a welcome added spectacle to their event and will provide more racing for the teams. At present it is still unclear if or how these races will have any bearing on the Louis Vuitton Challenger series as ACM have indicated they will.

So the events in 2004-2006 leading up to the Louis Vuitton Challenger series and the 32nd America's Cup itself must be called 'Acts' as in the unfolding of a play and no longer termed 'pre-regattas' as we were told in Geneva when Valencia was announced as the 2007 Cup venue back in November. We're not convinced that this mixing of the arts and sport even if it is only in terminology will curry any favours for the media and public. 'Alinghi wins Act One' is more likely to conjure up images of men in tights than serious yachting professionals going about their hardcore sport. However some most enjoyable headline writing lies ahead with 'The Comedy of Errors' or 'Much Ado About Nothing' just to be getting on with...