America’s Cup is swirling down the loo

  Jim FarmerA lawyer by profession, Jim Farmer (NZL) has history in the America’s Cup.  He served as a director of Team New Zealand from 2004 to 2013, was a member of the Challenger Commission

for the 2007 Cup and a member of the International Committee that investigated safety rules following the death of Andrew Simpson for the 2013 Cup.

In this commentary, Farmer follows a timeline that is arguably swirling down the loo:

We all remember the excitement when Sir Peter Blake led Team New Zealand to win the America’s Cup from the United States in 1995, with the whole country getting behind the “red socks” campaign to raise money to ensure that the team got to the finish line. Winning it from “Dirty Dennis” Connor, who was seen to be unsporting and who didn’t play fair, was the icing on the cake.

However, after Blake left, the Cup was lost to Alinghi but then won back again by Team NZ under Grant Dalton from Oracle in 2017 and then successfully defended in Auckland in 2021 with the aid of substantial New Zealand public money and other local support.

It has all been downhill since.

Dalton cajoled the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, which under the America’s Cup Deed of Gift is the true holder and trustee for the Cup, into agreeing to the next defense (in 2024) being hosted by Barcelona in Spain. As a softener to the disappointment and anger that was generated, he told a RNZYS members’ meeting that one of the preliminary regattas leading up to the Challenge Event would be held in Auckland. That promise will not be kept…

Read more on Scuttlebutt