Swiss billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli's Alinghi has apparently ruled out bringing the America's Cup back to Auckland if it cannot reverse a court veto of Gulf state Ras al Khaimah as the venue for the next America's Cup.
Britain's Independent newspaper has reported a source in the syndicate as saying
it absolutely refuses to sail again in Auckland - one of two venues highlighted last month as alternatives to Ras al Khaimah (RAK) .
Justice Shirley Kornreich ruled in the New York Supreme Court that RAK did not comply with the Deed of Gift, the 19th-century document that governs the Cup, because the deed rules out competition in the Northern Hemisphere from November to May 1.
She proposed that Societe Nautique de Geneve could select Valencia, which had met both team's approval despite being in the Northern Hemisphere, "or any other location" that complied with the deed of gift.
The judge has set up a panel of three "wise men", including Alinghi's nominee, New Zealander Graham McKenzie, and Oracle's Bryan Willis, of Britain, plus a third agreed by the two - Australian David Tillett - to resolve five specific points.
Alinghi has insisted that it is also still seeking to find a Southern Hemisphere venue to comply with rules drawn up in an 1887 trust deed.
But speculation this could be New Zealand was contemptuously dismissed by a senior member of the Swiss syndicate saying: "Auckland is the only place in the Southern Hemisphere we would never go," the Independent reported.
Team New Zealand's lawyer, Jim Farmer QC, last month told the New Zealand Herald newspaper there was a possibility that the court could eventually decide to send the Cup back to Auckland.
But the Independent said Alinghi now wants the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court to uphold an earlier ruling that it has freedom of choice for the staging of the event next February.
Ras al Khaimah is one of the seven states comprising the United Arab Emirates.
- NZPA
