They are the familiar 'Latin Rascals', the Mascalzone Latino team owned by Naples shipping operator Vincenzo Onorato who participated in Auckland 2003 and Valencia 2007, and a new entity from Spain, the Real Club Nautico de Denia.
Denia are part of the Valencian Communitat, who together with the Spanish government agreed a 75 million GBP hosting-rights deal with Swiss Cup holder Ernesto Bertarelli.
Onorato's entry is the more interesting one. At the start of the summer he was an active supporter of the legal action in the New York Supreme Court, brought by Larry Ellison's Golden Gate YC over the validity of another Valencian yacht club, the CNEV, with whom Bertarelli had created a skewed set of rules for the next Cup.
Yet last Thursday Mascalzone Latino conspicuously did not join three other teams - Britain's Origin, Team New Zealand and South Africa's Shosholoza - whose challenges were already accepted by the Swiss in signing the compromise settlement offered by the Americans, only to be rejected by Bertarelli.
