Dana Johannsen: America's Cup setting sail towards irrelevancy

Ernesto Bertarelli and Larry Ellison's quest for the Auld Mug via the New York court system is achieving little but to push the world's most prestigious sailing event towards irrelevancy.

Few really care about the details now, but the latest squabble in the seemingly interminable case is over the venue for the nautical grudge match between Alinghi and BMW-Oracle, which has been set down for February next year.

The cunning Swiss picked the little-known Persian Gulf port of Ras al-Khaimah for their February showdown against BMW-Oracle. The American syndicate promptly appealed and a New York judge yesterday ruled that the best-of-three series cannot be held in RAK as it contravenes the Deed of Gift.

The decision by Justice Shirley Kornreich was based on the stipulation in the 1887 document that the America's Cup cannot be sailed in the Northern Hemisphere between November 1 and May 1, not on security concerns raised by the Americans.

The rare one-on-one showdown in massive multihulled boats now appears headed to Valencia, unless the bitter rivals can agree on another port that complies with the Deed of Gift. In that case, it would have to be in the Southern Hemisphere.

Auckland has been mooted as a possible venue, but in reality the chances of that are very slim.

The Swiss syndicate would never even consider bringing the showdown to Auckland for the bitter aftertaste from the awful BlackHeart campaign in 2003 still resonates. Nor have Alinghi forgotten their treatment at the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series earlier this year (although the Swiss syndicate's behaviour here did little to generate public goodwill).

Before Alinghi consider other venues you can bet they will appeal against yesterday's ruling.

Judge Kornreich said she ruled from the bench yesterday to give Alinghi's backing yacht club, Societe Nautique de Geneve (SNG), time to appeal if it chose to. But even if an appeals court quickly resolves the question of the race location, the litigation still won't be over.

GGYC recently filed a New York state court complaint against SNG, alleging that the Swiss club has breached its duties as trustee of the America's Cup by rigging the rules to ensure it wins.

This is bad news indeed for the future of the cup. By asking the New York Supreme Court to remove the Swiss yacht club from its position as trustee in a breach of fiduciary duty complaint, BMW-Oracle have politicised the dispute, meaning a resolution before February 2010 is nigh impossible. The latest wave of court action will only reinforce to organisers of the Louis Vuitton World Series that they are on to a good thing.

Louis Vuitton has seized on the vacuum created by the legal fight between Alinghi and BMW-Oracle to start an international series of regattas for America's Cup class boats that could well supersede the cup as the world's premier sailing event. Building on the successful blueprint of Louis Vuitton Pacific Series hosted by Emirates Team New Zealand in Auckland earlier this year, an extended world series was created to give those syndicates that don't have billionaire backers, and depend on corporate sponsorship to remain afloat, some certainty and direction.

The series begins in Nice next weekend.

It won't be about which team has the biggest budget, or are the most technologically advanced, but rather the best sailors that will win. Isn't that a novel idea.