Yachting: RAK out, Valencia next up

BMW Oracle have taken what could be a large step towards capturing the America's Cup in February.

It's too early, of course, to proclaim a winner in anything.

Anyone who thinks court action won't happen after the big boat challenge involving a huge catamaran (Alinghi) and a giant trimaran (Oracle) should go and stand on a street corner, harnessing their optimism, hold their hand out and expect diamonds to fall into it.

But the American syndicate may have the upper hand in the tedious, protracted, two-year legal struggle after the New York Supreme Court last week shot down Alinghi's choice of venue - the tiny emirate of Ras al-Khaimah, near Dubai.

Alinghi, amid glorious fanfare, including pictures of helicoptering their catamaran out of a Swiss lake to start the long journey to Ras al-Khaimah, chose the venue instead of Valencia - site of the 32nd America's Cup challenge where Alinghi beat Emirates Team New Zealand to retain the Cup.

The cynics say Alinghi boss and billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli chose RAK because of potential business links but, if so, he grossly under-estimated the political backwash. Iran - whose troublesome leadership is making nuclear missile noises, upsetting the US and Israel - is just 30 nautical miles from the emirate.

The judge who heard Oracle's contention that Ras al-Khaimah should not be the venue, Shirley Kornreich, said she did not take Oracle's security concerns into account and ruled solely on the America's Cup Deed of Gift.

Supreme Court judges are part of the political system in the US - elected for their terms - and Kornreich is Jewish and a member of a Jewish legal fraternity.

Larry Ellison, the billionaire head of BMW Oracle is also Jewish.

Anyone with an Israeli passport or with a stamp in their passport showing they have been there is not allowed entry to Ras al-Khaimah, according to Oracle's contentions.

So it would be naive to think that, while not crediting them publicly, any judge would not have in mind security and political concerns. The Appeal Court is also part of the political system and Alinghi have so far intimated they will not appeal.

What that means is that the venue for the 32nd America's Cup regatta - Valencia in Spain - shapes now as the most likely port for the big boat challenge.

The time to build the infrastructure for a regatta probably predicates against a new venue and, as Emirates Team New Zealand boss Grant Dalton said: "They [Alinghi] got a pretty strict directive re Valencia and I don't think they will appeal."

Alinghi could opt for a new venue in the Southern Hemisphere but that could contain more legal hooks.

Few believe that will happen or, indeed, can even guess what suitable Southern Hemisphere venue might offer the light winds Alinghi's catamaran is said to favour. Oracle's trimaran is set up more for heavier winds although both have been undergoing modifications recently.

"I think all roads lead to Valencia," said Dalton. "I think you can say the pendulum has now swung back towards Oracle.

However, Alinghi are nothing if not inventive, stubborn and creative and an attempt at a Southern Hemisphere venue could be made to throw Oracle a curve ball.

However, it is a little over three months away from the regatta start on February 8 and there is probably no time left to achieve such a result - and it may risk forfeiture.

Alinghi are also subject to other Oracle-inspired court action over a breach of fiduciary duty (which could see the Spanish yacht club SNG removed as trustee, thus raising the possibility of a new club to control the regatta and the match).

Oracle are also taking legal action over rules they say tilt the scales so firmly in Alinghi's favour that the defender could rule the challenger out on a pretext.

Alinghi's far from dead in the water, however. It may be that their boat is better in stiffer breezes than popularly supposed - or could yet be made so - and they may yet come out of the court hearings (resolution on outstanding matters is expected this week) with at least a modicum of control.

But, as we wait for that and the naming of the next venue, there is another irony - Team NZ left yesterday for Nice, the first port of call in the new Louis Vuitton World Series of yachting.

The America's Cup might have been lost at sea for the past two years-plus but the Louis Vuitton regattas is getting going with that unusual pastime for America's Cup yachts: sailing.

"It's an event for our times," said Dalton before he flew out. Nice will be followed by regattas in Auckland, Sardinia and Hong Kong, plus others yet to be announced.

"What was it Brad Butterworth [Alinghi skipper and former Team NZ member] said about us - that we were broke and desperate?" said Dalton. "Well, we have survived and we are going racing."