On April Fools Day this year, the America’s Cup World Series venues were announced. The first event will take place in Cascais in Portugal and the second in Plymouth UK.

The America’s Cup World Series Portugal event is not far away. Just two months in fact. So if you are planning on booking flights to Lisbon or accommodation in Estoril, then you need to hurry, because… well actually there’s not that much hurry – August is low season in that part of the world, so getting a hotel bed shouldn’t be too hard.

The schedule of events for the Cascais America’s Cup World Series has been released, so you can work out which days you watch the sailing and which days you play golf or visit nearby Sintra.

America’s Cup Program – Cascais, Portugal, 2011

• August 6 – 7, fleet racing
• August 10 – 12, both fleet and match racing
• August 13, match racing finals
• August 14, fleet racing finals

As for getting a ticket, well media have to be accredited using a process where giving your passport number (without letters) is compulsory, but we can’t find any information for spectators.

Perhaps (and we would LOVE to be proved wrong), this is the same old, same old way of doing things. Will there be a race village? Where will it be located? Will there be the opportunity to watch from the water? If so – where do you find information about that? Is there an opportunity to purchase VIP packages? What time does racing start and finish? How many races will there be in a day? Where is the best place to watch from?

According to the press release – thousands of spectators will watch the racing, but there is nothing to be found on the official America’s Cup website about how. Perhaps fans should just book flights in August in the hope that the organisers get it right. After all:

In addition to the on-the-water action, the AC World Series also brings the America’s Cup experience to fans on land. Events and activities associated with the AC World Series will be announced later this summer.

Richard Worth, Chairman of the America’s Cup Event Authority is even more optimistic about the crowd figures:

“The America’s Cup World Series will expose hundreds of thousands of more people to the sport of sailing in its most exciting form – right in front of their eyes. We are excited to begin our global journey in Cascais, where both the racing and the experience will be first-rate.”

The experience. Now there is an interesting word. Experiential sports marketing when done well is brilliant, but if I am an America’s Cup fan, there is no infrastructure to ensure my experience is a great one. There is no Page and Moy Escorted tour that we are aware of. There is no equivalent to ‘Barmy Army’ supporter tours because the teams have no fans as such. Again – if we are wrong then please let us know. At the very least, the providers of such services have failed to get their offer ranking very well in Google.

Nevertheless, Carlos Carreiras, Mayor of Cascais is confident that the town can pull it off:

“It is a great honor for Cascais to hold this event. Cascais, located on the Estoril Coast, is a premier tourism destination, and our waters are considered to offer some of the best yacht racing in the world. We are looking for a superb event.”

Perhaps it’s best not to get on a plane, no matter how good the custard tarts are. After all, we have been promised a revolution in television coverage. So presumably we’ll be able to sit at home in the UK or Australia and experience the America’s Cup World Series in Cascais as if we had paid to stand on a floating hospitality platform. We haven’t read about a big TV deal yet, so perhaps you’ll need a Roku box or at the very least a high-speed internet connection and an HDMI cable so you can sit with a beer and watch the action on your big screen telly.

The AC World Series will be sailed in the AC45, the forerunner to the next generation of America’s Cup boats. The boat was launched to great acclaim in New Zealand in January of this year. Focused on creating more on-the-water excitement for both the teams and the fans, the AC45 wing-sailed catamaran was designed for both speed and close racing. While capable of speeds of over 32 mph (28 knots), the AC45 remains nimble enough to handle the tight, tactical race courses planned by America’s Cup Race Management.

Applications for media accreditation must be made using the form online (don’t forget to have your passport handy), but if you are a fan… try sticking Cascais into Expedia and hope you get lucky.

More America’s Cup news.

The closing date for entries for the next America’s Cup gets closer. With one AC45 catamaran built and sailing, the organisers of the sideshow event, the AC World Series have announced a calendar of events.

By July, the America’s Cup Event Authority expects to have enough teams and enough boats, ready to put on a professional sporting event for spectators. Hopefully the first venue knows where it will be, and hopefully soon fans will also know, so they can book travel in some of the most expensive summer months.

Host cities are expected to be announced in coming weeks, but at least two of the dates clash with the established Extreme Sailing Series. It is unclear whether the America’s Cup name will be enough to draw new crowds to the sport who haven’t already heard of the Extreme Series. 5 extra feet and a wing-sail may not be enough of a differentiator, especially when the events are brand new.

Nevertheless, Richard Worth, Chairman of the ACEA is confident that the winning cities will have the infrastructure and major event planning capabilities to deliver sporting events comparable to the Champions League and Formula 1 – the first in around 120 days.

“We are incredibly pleased with the potential choices we have before us, with venues that offer the kind of up-close action that fans want to see. We are finalizing our slate now. We feel very confident that each America’s Cup World Series event will be first-class, creating a real foundation for future editions of the circuit.”

The AC World Series hopes to be a regular circuit of eight regattas that will bring America’s Cup-level racing and the America’s Cup experience to top international venues.

The promoters are expecting the events to be televised to expose millions more fans to the sport of high-performance sailing.

The 2011-2012 AC World Series will be sailed in the AC45, the forerunner to the next generation of America’s Cup boats. The boats were originally slated as a platform for a youth America’s Cup, but in the short term, the AC45 allows teams to get used to sailing a multi-hull with a fixed wing sail.

The 2012-2013 season will be sailed in the larger and faster America’s Cup boats, the AC72, and its champion will be crowned just prior to the start of the Louis Vuitton Cup (America’s Cup Challenger Series) in July 2013. The youth America’s Cup seems to have been forgotten about, at least in this initial press release.

It’s a real shame that the sport of sailing couldn’t work out a way to combine resources rather than spread them thinner. The Extreme Sailing Series has kicked off this week in Oman with great names, great sailing and a team of event personnel that know how to run races for sailors and spectators alike. To create another multi-hull series, which to the Facebook Generation is no different, seems like rights holders being greedy, or arrogant, or both.

It would be wonderful to see the America’s Cup World Series piggy-back on other events where there was already a crowd, and four of the dates line up nicely with scheduled In-Port activity of the next Volvo Ocean Race. That would be smart. That would be great for the sport. That’s the sort of thing that ISAF as the governing body of the sport should take a lead on, but what are the chances?

America’s Cup World Series for AC 45 Calendar of Events

• 16 – 24 July 2011 (Audi Med Cup, Barcelona, Spain)
• 13 – 21 August 2011 (RC44, Marstrand, Sweden)
• 17 – 25 September 2011
• 15 – 23 October 2011 (Extreme Sailing Series, Almeria)
• 10 – 18 December 2011 (Extreme Sailing Series Singapore, VOR In Port Cape Town)
• 17 – 25 February 2012 (Volvo Ocean Race In Port China)
• 14 – 22 April 2012 (Volvo Ocean Race In Port Brazil)
• 19 – 27 May 2012 (Volvo Ocean Race In Port Miami)

More America’s Cup News

We’d love to give you a nice outlook on the year, all neatly packaged up so you know where you need to be when, which events clash with others and how to plan your travel and budgets… but the Yacht Racing Industry is not quite there yet, so here on the 2nd of January 2009, many of the calendars for some of the world’s most ‘professional’ events are not confirmed. 

We’ve had a go at a Calendar, based on what we know from some of the organisers. It’s in Google format, which means you can synchronise it with your Outlook or blackberry, or whatever you want to synchronise it with.

If you want to be an editor, let us know and we will set you up so that you can edit dates, add information, links etc. 

View the 2009 Calendar here…

Louis Vuitton have announced the names of the 12 teams that will compete in the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series. Mr Yves Carcelle, Chairman & CEO of Louis Vuitton, welcomed the participation of all the teams at an event at the New Zealand Embassy in Paris. 

When the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series was announced last September, 23 teams expressed their interest. Fourteen teams have confirmed they want to compete. With the number of participants being limited to 12, the last two entries have been placed on a waiting list. If, in the next month, one or more teams drop out, the teams in waiting will have the opportunity to fill the vacancy.

“The success of the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series has exceeded our expectations. We are pleasantly surprised that the announcement of this event has created a sense of excitement and conciliation in the world of the America’s Cup,” said Yves Carcelle.

The teams will now start their preparations. They will arrive in Auckland on January 23rd in order to familiarise themselves with the boats.

Bruno Troublé, spokesperson for Louis Vuitton, said that the gathering of international teams and sailors which will convene in Auckland for the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series is one of the most impressive ever brought together.

The Louis Vuitton Pacific Series is being organised in association with the New Zealand Government, Emirates Team New Zealand, the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, Auckland City and Sky City Entertainment Group.

Alinghi, winner and defender of the 2003 Louis Vuitton Cup is one of the confirmed participants.
Six daily match races are planned on short windward-leeward courses laid at the entrance to Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour, between Rangitoto Island and the city foreshore. There will be a daily draw to decide which yacht competing teams will sail that day.