Wednesday morning finally saw some America's Cup activity in Valencia, not related to the infamous legal case in New York, even if one could argue about its relation to the world's oldest sports event.
Desafio Espanol, the now-invalidated Challenge of Record of the 33rd America's Cup, summoned the press in its base in order to present the team's TP52 and GP42 campaigns for the summer as well as give the current state of affairs in the challenger. Present where Agustin Zulueta, general manager, John Cutler, technical director and in charge of the TP52 campaign, and Laureano Wizner, helsman and skipper of the GP42 campaign.
The most important announcement was that finally, Desafio Espanol had chosen to represent a new yacht club, bringing the relation with the CNEV to an end. More precisely, from now on the Spanish team will represent the Real Club Maritimo del Abra, located in Bilbao, in northern Spain.
One obvious question was why didn't Desafio Espanol choose to represent Valencia's yacht club, given the physical proximity and of course the fact both Alinghi and BMW Oracle have stated that the 34th America's Cup will also take place in Valencia, regardless of the outcome of the 33rd edition. Zulueta's answer was odd and even if it sounded credible it caused lots of smiles from the journalists in the conference room.
Desafio Espanol's general manager declared that the decision was very simple and purely "alphabetical"!!! He had received a letter, dated 11 December 2007, from the association of Spanish yacht clubs where they stated that given the CNEV fiasco, each and every yacht club in the country was offering itself to let Desafio Espanol race its colors.
What was Zulueta's solution to the problem? In order to avoid the acrimonious Spanish regional disputes by choosing Valencia over Barcelona or vice versa, he took the list of all clubs ranked alphabetically and chose the first one, "Abra", or more precisely "Real Club Maritimo del Abra". It's credible but is it a coincidence the yacht club is located a few kilometers down the road from Iberdrola's headquarters?
Whatever the reasons, at least they learned their lesson and chose a serious, well-established club, more than a century old, having organized and organizing dozens of truly annual regattas. Yet, journalists jokingly asked whether the club had telephone and fax numbers or a functioning website. -- Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing.
