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Team New Zealand - Source: Photosport -
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There's an elephant in the room at the AudiMedCup regatta in Italy and it's called the America's Cup.
Compounding the problem is the performance of Emirates Team New Zealand, the defending AudiMedCup champions leading both the 2010 series and the fifth and final regatta after which they will bow out of the competition.
The decision by Sir Russell Coutts and BMW Oracle Racing to stage the 34th America's Cup means ETNZ is shifting from monohulls to multis and will not be returning to the AudiMedCup circuit.
Ironically ETNZ entered the AudiMedCup to give its sailors and boatbuilders the opportunity to hone their skills in top level competition while the America's Cup was trapped in litigation.
Until now it has been mutually beneficial, the AudiMedCup's profile and the level of its racing both raised by the participation of ETNZ and other would-be America's Cup contenders like Britain's Team Origin, Russia's Synergy and Sweden's Artemis.
Now, though, with the America's Cup to be contested in catamarans, the AudiMedCup has lost its relevance for them. After this regatta and the final Louis Vuitton Trophy in Dubai in November ETNZ's America's Cup yachties will sail only on cats.
Yet working on the premise that every cloud has a silver lining, the organisers of the AudiMedCup see their event cementing its place as the world's leading regatta circuit because in their reckoning it is now taking over from the America's Cup as the pinnacle of monohull racing.
A question being posed here in Cagliari asks how is the world's fleet of racing yachts split between monos and multis? The America's Cup will certainly lift the profile of the multis, but back-of-an envelope calculations estimate the current fleet to be as much as 90 per cent mono.
And there already signs that the AudiMedCup will continue to thrive. In the first of a number of announcements expected this week the 2008 champions Quantum Racing outlined plans for a new boat and more are expected to follow.
Quantum's skipper is Terry Hutchinson, the former ETNZ tactician who now faces a dilemma in that he also drives for the America's Cup syndicate Artemis. But will he make the transition to cats? If he doesn't, America's Cup winner Ed Baird is here with the Quantum team observing their operation this week and ready to take over if Hutchinson does make the shift.
And what about Team Origin's Ben Ainslie? The former ETNZ sparring partner for Dean Barker in 2007 has three Olympic gold medals and wants to make it four at the 2012 games in his home waters off
Weymouth in southern England. But how will the British star cope trying to keep his edge in the Olympic Finn class mono while at the same time mastering a multi? Will he want to embrace the new discipline? Indeed will Team Origin want to?
It is a very fluid situation full of uncertainty and intrigue. But one thing here is for sure: ETNZ will be giving its all to walk away from the AudiMedCup this week with all the significant silverware - the trophies for both the regatta and the series.
Victory here is still all are all-important &ETNZ's America's Cup campaign could depend on it.
As managing director Grant Dalton explained: " I had a conversation with an important chief executive recently and he said 'I only ever look at teams in whatever sport it was that come first or second.' So it's really important that we do the deal properly and finish this off because that keeps our brand at the top of the food chain as all the America's Cup teams go into the same market. We have to be up there as the team they want to be with."
Four days and eight more races to go.
