Ras Al Khaimah, October 05: The America’s Cup has ceased to be about the grandeur of victory and defeat.
In fact, ever since West Australian winds left the American burgee in tatters for the first time in over a century in the 1983 challenge, yachting world’s premier event has been as much about strategies in courts of law as tactics on water.
The 2010 challenge — for which Ras Al Khaimah in the UAE is priming to play hosts — must now sail through the scrutiny of a New York court before the expectant air in the emirate can freshen into a sigh.
The challengers or losers the last time round in the mega-million-dollar event, the Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC) of the US, has moved the New York Supreme Court and impugned the holder’s choice of Ras Al Khaimah as the venue for the event next February.
The GGYC, represented on water by BMW-Oracle, has cited Ras Al Khaimah’s proximity to Iran as a security concern and questioned the adequacy of the infrastructure here, in a plea now characteristic of the Cup’s legal quibbles.
In its Memorandum of Law, the GGYC prays that Valencia in Spain — where Société Nautique de Geneve’s Team Alinghi won and with it the right to choose the next venue — be repeated as the 2010 venue. “SNG has never explained why it selected Ras Al Khaimah over Valencia,” the memorandum argues.
This comes at a time when Swiss Team Alinghi is already in Ras Al Khaimah and waits for the challenger.
“(They) seem to believe that the 33rd America’s Cup can be won in court as their 7th legal challenge demonstrates,” Alinghi skipper Brad Butterworth said in a statement earlier.
“Oracle can say what they want, but the facts prove they are wrong.” Shaikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi, Crown Prince and Deputy Ruler of Ras Al Khaimah, said at the inauguration of a university campus in the emirate on Sunday.
“Actually, the Americans have great presence in the country,” he said in an apparent allusion to security concerns. “The traffic movement in the Gulf is not like a one small boat coming and going. There are so many commercial and passenger ships going through the Gulf and we never had any problems.”
–Agencies