Yachting: Swiss cup bid short of francs

By Suzanne McFadden

The future looks bleak for the Swiss America's Cup challenge.

The Fast 2000 team is so strapped for cash it has stopped all work on their new boat in Geneva and it is unlikely they will be on the start line in Auckland in October.

They have also had to quit construction on their base at the Viaduct Basin.

Marc Pajot, the French Cup veteran running the campaign, says the syndicate faces a major cashflow crisis and cannot continue until it is solved.

They must meet a deadline in less than a month - find the francs or pull out of the America's Cup.

The Swiss started with a hiss and a roar, chartering a French boat which never saw the water in 1995.

The yellow "banana boat," as it became known around Auckland, did a month's testing on the Hauraki Gulf. But the Swiss headed home prematurely, skipping the road to the America's Cup regatta, because they were short of cash.

The boat is still sitting on the hard in the cup village, while construction of a new boat began in Geneva in February.

Pajot says he is still optimistic of finishing the boat he describes as "a real leap forward in the field of naval architecture."

The Swiss cannot sail the existing yellow boat in the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger series because it was originally built in France.

The French syndicate who own it, from the Yacht Club de Cannes, may not be able to sail it either, because it has Swiss-built appendages and sails.

Twelve new boats are now under construction around the world for the challenger series.

The Hawaiians, Italians and Japanese have already started their second boats.

The others building are Young America, America One, America True, Team Dennis Conner, Le Defi France and the Spanish Challenge.

The British look less likely than ever to be here, with no funding yet. Little has been heard of the progress of Syd Fischer's Holy Grail syndicate across the Tasman.