With the dust settling down and the Cup World waiting for the 35th America’s Cup protocol, the architect of the 34th edition of the Cup spoke exclusively to Yachting World about the thoughts and ideas for the upcoming event.
The CEO of Oracle Team USA, Russell Coutts has been working relentlessly for defining the boundaries of the 35th America’s Cup and has been meeting representatives of the Hamilton Island Yacht Club, which has emerged as the challenger of the record and also the other potentials teams. Though nothing has been finalized yet, there is a shared vision about the event that is soon approaching and that will build on the success of the 34th edition of the Cup.
Talking to the magazine regarding the cots, Coutts said that America’s Cup is a unique event and is right there at the zenith of the yachting sport world but it does not require to be more sustainable as far as the cost is concerned. He said that the cost versus the potential revenues that will be earned by the clients have been far out and there is a sincere effort to close this gap and finally reverse the trend where cost exceeds the revenue. He further said that this time he was expecting and hoping to reduce the cost to two third of what it was the last time around.
As far as the participating teams were concerned, Coutts said that in his opinion it was always better to look for quality than quantity. Right now there were four teams from the AC 34 which are active and there is also the Australian challenger of record. So, the Cup will see five top quality teams and he was hopeful that the number might increase. He said that it would really be great to have a team from Asia.