After Justice Herman Cahn, of the New York Supreme Court, threw out the appeal of Alinghi, the defending team, and ruled in favour of BMW Oracle, confusion reigned yesterday as to when the 33rd America’s Cup would take place. Alinghi said immediately that they would not appeal and looked forward to their enforced showdown with BMW Oracle in July 2009. But BMW Oracle said that the competition would be held in October 2008.

“You have to ask Alinghi how they came up with July 2009,” Tom Ehman, the BMW Oracle spokesman, said. “The Deed of Gift [the America’s Cup’s rules] says that the Challenger [BMW after their court victory] chooses the date and must give ten months’ Notice of Challenge. So we challenged last July. We gave them not ten months, we gave them 12 months’ notice and chose dates in July 2008.

“In December, after Justice Cahn’s ruling, we agreed with their attorneys then - they have since been excused by Alinghi - that we would race in October [2008]. So we gave them another 11 months’ notice from Justice Cahn’s decision and a total of 16 months’ notice [from the original challenge], and now they want two years’ notice. As far as we are concerned it is in October, we won’t go back now. Even though Justice Cahn makes it quite clear that the match could be in July [2008], we stand by our agreement.” Alinghi, despite the billions of Ernesto Bertarelli, their owner, are already worried about the timeline, which puts huge pressure on the teams to build competitive multi-hulls for the race, as opposed to the normal monohull America’s Cup designs. Alinghi, who must soon name the venue, feel that BMW Oracle, owned by Larry Ellison, have made a head start on the design last year. A full America’s Cup, with other teams such as Great Britain’s Team Origin, is now unlikely to be held before 2011.

On Tuesday, Justice Cahn upheld his decision of November 28 over the invalidity of the original Spanish challenger, chosen by Alinghi, and turned down Alinghi’s request to invalidate BMW’s challenge.

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