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GENEVA - BMW Oracle's Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC) has contested the way Alinghi has set up the next America's Cup, arguing that it unfairly favours the Swiss defender.
Under the America's Cup rules, the winner decides where, when and how to race the next event, agreeing the
details with the first yacht club to challenge them for the "Auld Mug".
After Alinghi won the 32nd America's Cup last week, they signed a protocol for the next event with newly-established Club Nautico Espanol de la Vela (CNEV), agreeing to race in bigger boats. They did not set exact yacht design rules, a time or a place.
"The Alinghi Protocol for the 33rd Americas Cup alters the very nature of the competition giving unprecedented and unfair advantages to the Defender," GGYC said in a statement on Thursday (local time).
"Without the basic elements of regatta venue, date and boat design rules as required by the Deed of Gift (which governs the America's Cup), the Alinghi Protocol provides no opportunity for a fair and equitable competition."
An Alinghi spokeswoman declined to comment.
The GGYC also said the new Spanish club was an illegitimate challenger under the Deed of Gift, which says a challenging yacht club must hold annual races on an arm of the open sea.
CNEV said there were precedents in the 156-year history of the Cup of a new club challenging and a protocol being signed with neither a time nor a place set for the next event.
In an email, it added it was organising two open-sea regattas in northern Spain this year.
The GGYC has now challenged Alinghi itself, rather than putting its name on a list of teams who would fight it out for the right to race Alinghi for the America's Cup. It said it had a lot of support from other clubs in its case.
The Golden Gate challenge is the latest in a line of disputes that have dogged the history of the America's Cup, the most prestigious regatta in sailing.
At the very first race in 1851, members of the British fleet that had been battered by the "America" argued the US schooner had an unfair advantage and may even have had a secret motor.
Most recently, in 1988, New Zealand made a challenge in a huge monohull. The defending San Diego Yacht Club beat them in a zippy catamaran but a final decision over whether the victory was legitimate was held up in court for months.
The GGYC, represented by software billionaire Larry Ellison at the last two America's Cups, said Alinghi could already begin to design their defence while leaving potential challengers in the dark about the new boats they will have to build.
Alinghi have said they will tell other teams where and when the next Cup will be by December 31 and will set the exact rules over how to build the new class boat by the end of the year.
- REUTERS