KEY POINTS:
Team New Zealand boss Grant Dalton says he would be surprised if America's Cup defender Alinghi are much advanced in building a 90-foot multi-hull yacht to take on Oracle in the courtroom-inspired clash likely to take place later this year.
The Cup went back into court last week
after Alinghi and Oracle could not agree on a date to hold the head-to-head clash which, after Oracle's successful court challenge against Alinghi, cuts out all other challengers (including Emirates Team New Zealand). The regatta will likely be held in Valencia in July or October this year.
But Alinghi are claiming they do not have time to be ready and the matter has gone back to the New York Supreme Court - for resolution next week.
Dalton says he believes Alinghi are behind in the boat-building race.
That's in spite of the BMW Oracle syndicate saying that Alinghi chief Ernesto Bertarelli had been quoted in a newspaper in December as saying that Alinghi were "even then" preparing for a multi-hull clash in July.
"The problem is that these yachts will be an enormously stressed engineering piece of kit. It's a bit like launching a lunar satellite into space - it's no mean feat," said Dalton.
"Under the Deed of Gift, you have to build everything in the country of origin - Switzerland, in Alinghi's case. They just simply do not have the facilities there to do this entire thing.
"I mean, you have the entire military might of the United States to draw on, versus Switzerland? It's a very tight timeframe and I just do not think they have the physical presence to do it in time.
"These are not the sort of boats that you can build and then spend a week sailing around in it before racing. In a perfect world, you'd want the boat built and on the water in January for a July race."
In which case, said Dalton, if Alinghi were so behind, they should "forfeit now and help get things back on the rails".
Dalton's comments stem from Alinghi's acknowledgment that forfeiture of the Cup to Oracle is an option if they are forced to sail on a date they cannot ready themselves for. While some observers think Alinghi must have prepared themselves for a multi-hull duel, Dalton has his doubts.
"Going back to court just shows how desperate Alinghi are. They did say they wouldn't go back to court - so the writing is on the wall, I think. But, for us, it could mean we are approaching the end of all this - the fog is lifting and the sun is starting to poke through.
"And if Alinghi forfeited now, we could get this whole show back on the water and get all the other challengers involved. We could turn [Team New Zealand headquarters] back on in three days but, if Alinghi continue this, they will continue to harm the America's Cup financially and they will not be helping their own case."
The anti-Alinghi theme has also been picked up by Vincenzo Onorato, the billionaire owner of the Mascalzone Latino syndicate that raced at Valencia in the last America's Cup and who, in an article published in Sail World, has accused Alinghi of "profoundly damaging" the Cup.
"The Cup was effectively brought before the court by Alinghi, with its ignominiously unsporting protocol... Alinghi's plan was to control the Cup and its challengers in order to guarantee its subsidiary, ACM, total economic control of the event.
"I knew that a sure-fire way of losing all the sponsors was to take the Cup to court and I wanted to avoid this... Contrary to Alinghi's declarations, I found Russell Coutts very willing to talk. Oracle's primary motivation was the same as Mascalzone Latino's - to achieve an honest and reliable competition. So I drafted a protocol that, broadly speaking, included the same rules that governed the 32nd Cup... I obtained... an informal guarantee from Oracle that if my draft protocol was accepted by Alinghi, they would immediately withdraw their legal action pending before the New York Supreme Court.
"The Cup would be saved, and also the date of the event and the economic interests of the city of Valencia. Then I presented the protocol to Alinghi, who did not even have the good manners to reply with a 'no thanks, we're not interested'.
"In the autumn, Oracle proved all too ready to negotiate with Alinghi, to the point of accepting almost all the points imposed in the much-discussed protocol, only to be turned down again with a scornful refusal.
"It's a harsh precedent that will weigh on the future of the Cup and those who love sailing but... we must seriously consider that this event has been profoundly damaged by Alinghi.
"The sponsors have disappeared and people are tired of all these controversies."
However, former Alinghi helmsman and sports director Jochen Schuemann (now with the soon-to-be-closed-down Team Germany, a victim of the financial straitjackets affecting many Cup challengers during the litigation period but which could resume operations later) disagreed.
In an interview with the Daily Sail, Schuemann said: "Alinghi made some mistakes by... issuing a protocol which was not 100 per cent sealed. That opened the door to Russell and Larry to try and gain as much influence as they could over the Cup, without being the Cup holder.
"They had a strong strategy from day one... For me it is them just pushing for power and ruling the Cup.
"There has been a clear strategy to attack Alinghi and the protocol and the Cup by Russell [Coutts] and Larry [Ellison] and they are closer to the Cup than they got on the water. And now they are pushing on time because there is a clear chance that if they keep following their strategy they might win the catamaran race and, when they do the next conventional Cup, they'll win that as well because there is no one really prepared, since everyone has slowed down and fired people and are not up to speed, except the two.
"So he has got a smart strategy and is pushing hard for it - that is one of the strengths of Russell; he always comes with a clear strategy.
"But from my point of view, from the sport's point of view, it is the wrong one because he is only fighting for himself.
"If Oracle would have joined [Alinghi's protocol] at that time we would have had a very fantastic America's Cup in 2009.
"But... they are fighting only to get into power and that is what their whole strategy is about."
