Editorial: Multihulls big gamble for Cup's future

The BMW Oracle team, shown scooting away from Alinghi, are already designing boats for the next America's Cup. Photo / Supplied

For someone who has fashioned such a formidable record in the America's Cup, Russell Coutts was remarkably scathing of its traditional format when he announced the shape of the new event.

The contest between monohulls had had "the appearance of a senior tour more than a pinnacle event", the BMW Oracle chief executive said.

This would end in 2013 when the racing would be in AC72s, a new class of 72-foot catamaran with a wing sail.

This, he said, would meet "the expectations of the Facebook generation, not The Flintstones generation".

Perhaps Coutts' stridency related to his knowledge that there would be far from universal praise for the switch.

Multihull racing may have a foothold in Europe but it struggles for recognition in many areas, including this part of the world.

Multihulls are, for example, denied entry to the Sydney to Hobart race, and doubts about their suitability for match-racing linger.

Further, Coutts would have been aware of the resistance of at least one potential challenger. Britain's Team Origin has said it might not compete if monohulls were cast aside.

The selection of AC72s also goes back on an undertaking by Larry Ellison, of BMW Oracle, and Ernesto Bertarelli, of Alinghi, that there would be a return to a monohull format after their multihull face-off in February.

It appeared the two billionaires, having sullied the image of the America's Cup with their bickering, had recognised extravagance must be reined in and the essence of the event rediscovered.

But having canvassed two classes of multihulls and a monohull class of similar dimensions to the 90-footers that featured in the 2007 America's Cup, Ellison has opted for the smaller of the multihulls.

Undoubtedly, this is a gamble. Many who cherish the grace and tradition of the event will have little appetite for catamaran racing. All will rest on its appeal to younger people, who Coutts believes will thrill to "the coolest and fastest boats in the world".

The racing will be shorter, sharper and is intended to be more spectacular. Television appeal will be added if BMW Oracle hosts the series in San Francisco, where the backdrop includes Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge.

A taste of such racing was provided when BMW Oracle's monster trimaran, complete with a radical wing sail, trounced Alinghi's catamaran off Valencia.

But if this held any fascination at all, it was mostly because it seemed an oddity. What stood out was the high level of technology brought to the contest by BMW Oracle, a level which could not be matched by the Swiss.

That, in itself, suggests another worry about the new format.

Coutts says "good monohull teams can become good multihull teams if they wish". The response of Team New Zealand, for one, suggests some are not necessarily convinced of this.

"We need to consider where we sit in terms of our ability to win," said managing director Grant Dalton. While BMW Oracle and Alinghi were having their private scrap, Team NZ continued racing in monohulls.

It will have to move quickly if it wishes to compete in an entirely different breed of boat in 2013.

Dalton says he has no doubt about Team NZ's ability to design, build and sail an AC72. Whether it can be of a technological standard that makes it competitive is another matter.

Coutts may be right that change is necessary to move the America's Cup into the 21st century, and to recapture the popular imagination. But this is a seismic shift in an event that has stuck close to its origins for most of the time since the first race was sailed in 1851.

New Zealanders of all ages who were gripped by the event, like Australians before them, never thought of it as antediluvian. If Coutts is wrong, the recent tarnishing will not only be accentuated, it will be terminal.