The America’s Cup between holders Alinghi and challengers Oracle is to be held in March 2009, a New York Supreme Court judge has ruled.

Judge Herman Cahn ordered the series to take place in Valencia, Spain, or another location chosen by Alinghi.

The winner of the duel will have the right to organise the subsequent event under the more usual multi-team format.

So if this is how it stands, and I have understood things correctly, BMW Oracle Racing have basically won themselves the right to race for the cup, avoiding a challenger series!

What about all the other teams who are expecting a crack at it, and are who made this the media success the last time around? What about Team Origin‘s attempt at mediation and a compromise?

Despite their not-so-clean reputation in all of this, if it is what ends up happening, all I hope for is that Alinghi thrashes Oracle on the water, and we can return to some normailty.

Short of banging a few rather rich heads together, some common sense needs to be brought back into the process in order to ensure that the America’s Cup remains the fantastic sporting and technological spectacle it should be.

Tags: America’sCup

rti 07

Originally uploaded by digitallust.

I stumbled across this photo today, and just had top share!

America’s Cup champion Alinghi has lost its court battle against rivals BMW Oracle, raising hopes of the reinstatement of the 2009 event.

BBC SPORT | Other Sport… | Sailing | Alinghi loses America’s Cup case

I hope so, this has been an embarrassment on what is a major sporting spectacle.

Lets move on, and see this decided fairly on the water!

Tags: americas+cup, alinghi

The 2009 America’s Cup in Valencia has been postponed because of a legal row.BMW Oracle Racing and champions Alinghi have been in a dispute over Desafio Espanol’s status as challenger in the prestigious yachting competition.

BBC SPORT | Other Sport… | Sailing | America’s Cup postponed over row

So, not only have we to wait until 2010 to see England play in an international football tournament (assuming we can qualify!), but now it looks like we won’t even be able to enjoy the spectacle that is the America’s Cup before then either!

This is leaving me feeling rather fed up!

Tags: England, football, AmericasCup, Alinghi, BMW Oracle Racing

You can imagine the scene, you’ve just come to the end of a four year struggle to successfully organise a major global sporting event, no doubt with weeks of tying loose ends up still ahead; no sooner is the cup held aloft do you learn that you’ve got to do it all over again, only this time in a 2 year time frame… then news reaches you that there’s a court action challenging your every decision, so things are going to be even more complicated. The good news is you’ve pretty much spent the past 4 years accumulating all that you need for the next campaign, so you don’t have to worry about that. At the very least, you’d think your boss would let you hang on to your desk and chair to work from.

But this is the America’s Cup, and there’s sponsorship money to squander. So you decide to arrange an auction of everything that’s beginning to look a bit tatty – perhaps you have a new colour scheme in mind for the office, or you simply see an opportunity to rid the organisation of that golf buggy you might have accidentally ‘pranged’ on one of those cerveza-fuelled late night races around the car park.

Hilarious! Follow the link below for more.

So whats the big deal? The auction is real, check it out here: http://www.32acauction.com/

Source: The Afterguard: The America’s Cup – There’s Everything to Pay For

Here’s a brief summary of how the three days went for us, for anyone interested!

Friday

Race 1: 2nd
Race 2: 3rd

We gave our new sails their official debut, and we went pretty well. Race 1 saw us leading around the windward mark, but we slipped back a place going downwind and never managed to claw it back.

Our start in race 2 was a shocker! To get back up to third was a good effort, but you can’t afford to start from the back and win!

Saturday

Race 3: 5th
Race 4: 5th

A frustrating day. We seemed to find all the holes in the wind, and my attempt at tuning of the mast to better fit our new sails didn’t help. I wasn’t happy with how well the boat was pointing on Friday, so had looked to get a little more bend to flatten the main, but I think we went with the rig too tight in the end.

Both races gave further evidence that our starts are an area to work on. Enough said!

Sunday

Race 5: 3rd

Sunday’s format was slightly different from the previous two days, a longer course, and sailing with the big boats. This made for some interesting moments! We got a reasonable start (for a change!), and we had good speed and we pointing well, after further playing with the rig tension. With hindsight we made the mistake of not covering (arguably!) the quickest boat when we should have, allowing him to get ahead picking the shifts better than we did. Having said that, another 500m of track, we’d likely have caught them, as downwind we were quick.

So, all in all, three good days of sailing, despite the light winds. I’ll post links to any photos I find.

Update: Photos added!

More to come, including photos!

Update: Photo added!

Well done boys, thats a good response after some of the recent lows.

For the record, England 253-6 beat Australia 252 by four wickets. Via the beeb.

It has been a depressing winter so far, and we look a different side from when we won the Ashes.

Still 1-0 up with two to play, can’t ask for a better start than that!