2005 Admirals Cup cancelled
by Bob Fisher 7 Apr 2005 10:00 BST
‘Sadly, we have not been able to attract enough teams,’ said RORC Commodore Chris Little when he announced the cancellation of this year’s Admiral’s Cup. That truth is hard enough to take, but the reasons for it are multifarious. Money, boats and attitudes, all contribute to the failure of the RORC’s Grand Prix event.
Having set their criteria around three classes, the club’s management committee members hoped for great things. After all, the Mumm 30 is highly popular and relatively inexpensive; the Swan 45 owners promised much, and the committee had seen that the IRC “Big Boat” was proving popular all over the world. The formula for success seemed assured. Why then did it fail?
Greed and disillusion come high on the list while the instability of the Grand Prix Rule is also contributory, and possibly the format of the racing, with three-boat teams from each nation, that included many hours spent offshore. It could just be that owners don’t like that.
When I spoke with Ian Walker, who was to race the Admiral’s Cup with the Irish team aboard their big boat, he said what I consider to be the most important observation relative to the cancellation, ‘The top end of sailing is becoming too expensive.’
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