On the water or not?

10/3/2010

Sir Russell Coutts (1975-79) is continuing to plan the first American defence of the America's Cup since 1995 but hasn't yet decided whether he will be a participant.

Sir Russell is currently in New Zealand to meet America's Cup teams competing over the next week in the Louis Vuitton Trophy series to gauge their views on how the 34th Cup regatta - likely to be held in San Francisco - should be conducted.

Sir Russell Coutts and friend

The 48-year-old was chief executive of the San Francisco-based Oracle syndicate which won the America's Cup from Swiss holders Alinghi off the Spanish port of Valencia last month to return the sport’s oldest trophy to the United States.

He had been responsible for taking the trophy from the US when he skippered Team New Zealand to victory over Dennis Conner's Young America team off San Diego in 1995.

Sir Russell told New Zealand media he was working to firm up Oracle's plans for its Cup defence but hadn't yet decided whether he would attempt to win the trophy for a fifth time.

"I'm still deciding what to do in the future. I don't want to rush things on that," he said.

"I've got a young family now and that's definitely a consideration.

"Right now I'm just doing the best job I can for Oracle and trying to speak to some of the other teams to create some good processes for the next America's Cup, but I haven't made a decision on my future yet."

Sir Russell confirmed the next America's Cup regatta would likely be held off San Francisco - home of Oracle's founding Golden Gate Yacht Club - and probably in 2013.

"We have to announce a timeline for some of the key decisions like the venue, format, type of boats and so forth at the end of March," he said.

"We've been meeting some of the teams to get their ideas on some of the big issues to be sorted out."

He said it would be for competing teams to decide whether the next Cup regatta involved multi-hulls, like the space-age trimaran Oracle sailed off Valencia, or more traditional mono-hull yachts.

"The multi-hulls were spectacular. I think it should be at least discussed if you came up with a sensible rule. But I think most people would probably favour mono-hulls, but I'm not making any presumptions," he said.

"If we end up in San Francisco, at an exciting venue with exciting wind conditions, there's a great opportunity to have some pretty spectacular boats.

"We've got to do a lot more work to figure out what budgets are acceptable, what the costs should be and fit that in with a consensus view of the teams."