Deed of Gift AC

Another U turn in the 33rd AC fiasco…. A recent court ruling suggests a change back to the original challenging club, and possibly back to 90ft monohulls. Well until the next appeal anyway…

I was actually quite looking forward to a Deed of Gift America’s Cup. The prospect of 100ft long multihulls battling it out for the cup was an exciting prospect, and what about the development potential when two huge AC teams throw themselves into multihull sailing? Multihulls out of the Olympics and into the AC seemed only fair.

I’d just started sailing when the 1988 Deed of Gift Cup was on, but I remember well the TV footage of that event with the huge Kiwi monohull, and Conner’s wingsailed catamaran. They were cool boats. And what about Blue Arrow, the foil stabilised monohull that Peter de Savary tried to join the competition with? That was a ‘craft’ well ahead of its time. And they built it in 11 weeks!

This boat was unveiled to the press almost exactly 20 years ago. What could a Deed of Gift AC have produced this time around?

(Mothie John Claridge was onboard by the way!)