Official contract between Valencia and America's Cup Management to be signed on Tuesday

According to Las Provincias, Valencia's main newspaper, the official contract between America's Cup Management and the three Spanish public administrations (central government, region of Valencia and city of Valencia) will be signed in Valencia tomorrow Tuesday, September 4th.

Although Valencia was announced as the host the city of the 33rd America's Cup in 2009 last July, no formal contract had been signed to this date because of the disagreement among the three public entities regarding the powers each one will have in this edition of the event. For that reason, always according to the same article, the President of the Valencia region and the mayor of Valencia met on Monday with high-level representatives of the central government in Madrid in order to agree on the person that will preside the public entity that represents Spain in the America's Cup organization.

In the 32nd edition the president was the mayor of Valencia but this time, according to the article, the central government will try to impose its own president. For that reason, hard bargaining is expected to take place till the last moment before the minister of Public Affairs arrives in Valencia on Tuesday morning in order to put her signature on the contract. As a result, if this information is correct, starting 4 September 2007, Valencia will officially be the host city of the 33rd America's Cup, unless of course the New York Supreme Court decides to the contrary.

At the same time, across the Atlantic, Société Nautique de Genève (SNG) will have till 3pm NY Time, Wednesday, September 5th, to file their documents for the upcoming hearing at the New York Supreme Court. The hearing will take place on September 10th (next Monday) and will concern two motions, first the demand by Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC) to expedite the case and second GGYC's request to have SNG reveal the rules and location of the next America's Cup match. It obviously regards the "Deed of Gift" match between BMW Oracle and Alinghi, in the hypothetical case GGYC won the litigation in New York, not the match under the current protocol that governs the 33rd America's Cup. Justice Kahn's order on August 22 regarding the September hearing can be found here.

Justice Kahn might or might not take a decision on Monday. If he takes a decision on expediting the case, the trial will then take place in October, as per the PDF copy of the order, and a decision could come out in November. It's a pity the pinnacle of sailing is not decided on the water. In any case we will post any news as soon as we have it.

If you like exciting sailing, check the official GP42 website. This up and coming class just had the closing event of its 2007 international circuit in Cascais. Unfortunately, out of the three days, only one and a half was raced under the strong constant winds the Portuguese city is famous for. As one of the sailors jokingly stated, on Saturday we had "0 knots with gusts reaching 1 knot".

The racing calendar for 2008 will be announced shortly and a number of new yachts is already under construction. Next summer there will probably be owners from more European countries than in the TP52s.