Mascalzone Latino trekker seg fra America's Cup

Det har lenge versert rykter om at det italienske laget, som også deltok i de 32. seilaser om America's Cup, hadde finansielle problemer. Nå er det altså klart at italierne må trekke seg. Dette er særlig kjedelig fordi laget, som Challenger of Record, ved siden av forsvarerne har hatt mye av ansvaret for opplegget rundt de neste seilasene.

Nå vil det i løpet av kort tid bli oppnevnt en ny Challenger of Record. Trolig er det svenske Artemis og Torbjørn Tørnqvist som ligger an til å overta denne rollen.

Her er Vincenzo Onoratos erklæring:

«With deep sorrow I have to announce my decision to withdraw my team from the 34th America's Cup.

Since the very beginning of our role as Challenger of Record, I have been working on this project focused to bring the Cup in our Country.

Larry deeply loves Italy and he was excited about this idea. The Cup in Italy would have been the greatest worldwide promotion for our beautiful coasts. There have been some very high level and important meetings that made us believing in this dream, but the things went in a different way.

As Challenger of Record, we have worked with humility next to Oracle and I am satisfied of the result we have reached: a new Cup, spectacular, with new boats, the catamarans, that will launch on the international scene a new generation of sailors.

With Russell we have discussed for long time on the most difficult challenge that the next Cup must face: an international situation with big economic crisis and therefore huge difficulties to find sponsor. This is the only, true, real enemy of the next Cup. We have then thought of the idea to create the class AC45, a concrete way to make lot of teams get involved in the event reducing costs, at least in the delicate period of the start-up.

On our side, I must thank the two Italian sponsors that believed and confirmed us their trust. We are not able, however, to reach a budget that allows us to be a competitive team.

In our sport, men in blazer have overcome by now those in oilskins, I'm a man in oilskin and when I go in the sea, I want to win. I'm not interested in a hopeless challenge, I would lie to the sponsors, to our fans and last but not least also to myself.

I would like to thank our friends from Club Nautico di Roma. I am sure that we will have new exciting adventures together.

The sailing adventure of Mascalzone Latino doesn't end anyway with the Cup, but it continues with the sailing school in Naples, free of charge, for those children coming from the most difficult areas of this town. A daily challenge, and, who knows, maybe someday we will see a new America's Cup champion coming out from one of them.

Fair wind to all of you.

Vincenzo Onorato»