KEY POINTS:
A New Zealand youth charity has again been snubbed by Alinghi yachting boss, Swiss billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli, after being left more than US$1 million out of pocket.
During the America's Cup regatta in Spain Mr Bertarelli refused to meet Stephen Fisher, chairman of the Auckland-based Spirit of Adventure
Trust to discuss a piece of silver from the original Auld Mug which was replaced after it was damaged during a vandal attack in Auckland in 1997.
The trust bought the discarded piece of silver from Garrards, the London jeweller which made the cup in 1848 and which repaired it after the 1997 attack by Maori activist, Benjamin Nathan.
The trust planned to sell the piece of silver, inscribed with historic winners and part of a course, to help fund its youth sail training ship, Spirit of New Zealand.
It had a firm offer of US$1m for the piece of solid silver but when Mr Bertarelli heard about it last year he objected.
Rather than take on an expensive legal fight which it believed it would win but could not afford, the trust gifted the piece of silver back to the Geneva Yacht Club under whose flag the Alinghi team sailed.
At the America's Cup regatta in Spain this year Mr Fisher tried to meet Mr Bertarelli to persuade him to return the piece of silver, about the size of a soup bowl, to the trust to use for fund raising.
Mr Bertarelli refused to give Mr Fisher the time of day.
Mr Fisher said Mr Bertarelli refused to meet him even though he knew the trust desperately needed funds to keep its youth sail training ship afloat and knew the trust worked for young people.
"I have a view but I had better not publish it. It was disappointing from the trust perspective," said Mr Fisher.
He said the trust needed an additional $500,000 a year over and above operating costs for the next 10 years to keep the 20-year-old ship going and upgrade it so it would last another 30 years.
However, he said the New Zealand fight for the historic piece of silver was not over.
He said under the Bertarelli logic if New Zealand won the cup at the next regatta the piece of silver should stay with the cup and the trust would review its stance. He would say no more.
Last year the Geneva Yacht Club lawyers accused the trust of skulduggery, refusing to accept the legal opinion that the trust had a legal right to own the piece of silver which was owned by the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron when it was damaged.
That legal opinion also said Garrards had the right to sell the discarded piece of silver after repairs.
In the past 30 years nearly 70,000 young people had sailed on the trust's ships which provide character building, leadership and independence.
- NZPA