SailJuice Blog

BMW Oracle Racing has won its appeal in New York, and once again the CNEV yacht club in Spain has been cast into outer darkness. A good day for Larry Ellison and Russell Coutts, a bad day for Alinghi and Ernesto Bertarelli, and a bad day for the other challengers waiting in the wings. Here’s the crucial bit:

“Since CNEV has failed to show that at the time it submitted its Notice of
Challenge it was a ‘club fulfilling all the conditions required by’ the Deed
of Gift, it does not qualify as the Challenger of Record for the 33rd
America’s Cup competition and Supreme Court was correct in declaring GGYC to
be the valid Challenger of Record. It has been posited that the right to act
as trustee of the

… Read the rest

In a stunning development today at the G20 conference, the European Union has allocated nearly 200 million Euros in development funds to aid the ailing marine industry across the continent. One small proviso on the funding was slipped through with little notice, but will rock the sailing industry:

the 2012 Olympics for sailing will be held in entirely new boats.

Not new as in “never been sailed”, new as in “new designs, new builds, nothing that we have now.” The intent was to promote new designs and new boat builds to restart the struggling industry. But good intentions spell chaos for sailors and the sport’s governing body.

“We believe that we will be allowed to keep the framework of types of boats, ie, singlehanded dinghy for men, high performance open, etc… but the 470, Laser, Finn, Star,… Read the rest