Congrats to GBR's TeamOrigin

TeamOrigin, the prospective AC 33 challenger from Great Britain, sailed their newly-acquired (from Alinghi) GBR 75 here in VLC on Saturday and, at least briefly, on Sunday. Photo courtesy of Carlo Borlenghi (ITA).

AC 33: Ham and Cheese?

"Louis Vuitton have their own vision of the event. It just depends on people's vision.... Some people like caviar and salmon, some people like ham and cheese. Neither makes you a bad person," he said.

--ACM COO Michel Hodara reacting to Louis Vuitton's Friday announcement that they are leaving the America's Cup after a quarter of a century. Full Reuters story here, entitled "Americas Cup seeks new sponsor after LV quits."

Sad Day for the Cup(s)

It is a beautiful day here in Valencia -- warm, dry, sunny with some white puffy clouds, and a very nice seabreeze. A good day to lay by the pool rather than putting up the first post on the CC Blog in over a month and a half. Our last post was 26 May.

The hiatus, of course, was as the result of most of the Challengers having been excused by then (at the end of the LVC Semis) from further participation, including the teams of your Ed. and the CC Chair, Alessandra Pandarese (ITA, Mascalzone Latino). We felt it better to leave it to the two remaining teams to carry out their own communications programs without the possibility of any conflict from or with the CCB.

But the AC 32 Challengers as a group are still in contact with each other, and certain meetings continue among that group in re. wind-down of AC 32 and developments related to AC 33. Hence the CCB will be maintained should the need arise for more general communication among, or from, the AC 32 Challengers.

The title of this post relates, of course, to yesterday's announcement by Louis Vuitton. Media reports the world over have carried the disturbing news, at least for the Challengers, and ACM's response.

Elaine Bunting is Yachting World's features editor. This commentary from her blog today:

Louis Vuitton's marriage to the America's Cup ended with an acrimonious divorce yesterday when they delivered a sharp slap to the America's Cup Management (ACM). The news that they are withdrawing from sponsorship of the Challenger trials was accompanied by carefully worded censure of ACM's plans for the next Cup.

The French luxury goods company has become synonymous with the America's Cup, which they have sponsored since 1983. But the news that they are dropping out confirms rumours that they are unhappy with the way the event is being run and the escalation in the costs of sponsorship and participation.

The most intriguing element of the announcement is its criticism of the naked commercialism of the Alinghi-led management, and the power struggle that is brewing about how the next event will be run.

'Louis Vuitton have decided not to sponsor the next Challenger trials but will carefully observe the future evolution of the event,' they say. 'The new rules of the America's Cup imply a more commercial approach and the protocol is already disputed by some teams. In addition, there is a risk of a significant reduction in the number of teams taking part.'

If the dispute about the protocol is one of the reasons for withdrawing, that's strange: you would think that such a major decision would been made in principle well before the shenanigans this week. If anything, the announcement reads like a veto: Louis Vuitton will watch the event 'carefully' and they reserve the right to sponsor another event with a Louis Vuitton Cup.

The announcement drew a wonderfully haughty, huffy response from Michel Hodara, chief operating officer of ACM. "Now, we will simply have to find a partner that shares the same values of the Cup and this sport," he said dismissively.

As for getting the Louis Vuitton Cup trophy back for the company to use again, that's out of the question. ACM would not be asking Emirates Team New Zealand to hand it back.

"It can remain theirs for all of eternity," Hodara said.

The next America's Cup is already proving to be a first-rate spectator sport.




Gone, at least for the moment, but not forgotten.