Sailing: America's Cup low on Spirit of Britain

Lack of corporate interest has scuppered UK hopes of entering the world's greatest yacht race next year.

THE THREADBARE coat of optimism worn by the Spirit of Britain America's Cup syndicate is looking increasingly like an emperor's illusion as time runs out on a dream to see the UK's return to the millennium party that will be New Zealand's defence early next year.

Every day the same question is asked more anxiously: Has the life support machine, which has included personal contributions from the syndicate's chairman, professor Andrew Graves, and principal players, Lawrie Smith and Angus Melrose, plus sponsorship from the likes of British Aerospace and Silicon Graphics, been turned off?

The silence is reminiscent of Soviet days in the Kremlin when a president was dying. Everyone was convinced it was happening, knew what was coming, but it could not be spoken. Even last week's optimism about flying in a team of boat builders to start work is smothered in caveats by Graves.

The difference is that there is no heir apparent waiting to take over. Britain has not been able to send a competitor to the last two Cups, held in San Diego in 1992 and 1995. The last time a British boat was on the race course was in 1986 in Fremantle, Western Australia when Graham Walker's Crusader was eliminated before the semi-finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger series.

Attempts have been made since then to whip up enthusiasm but neither British sponsorship nor, for that matter, European or global finance has been forthcoming. In contrast, there will be five US syndicates vying for the right to be the ultimate sole challenger to the Kiwis next February. The French and the Australians are ever-present, the Japanese and Spanish are in for a third time, and the Italians are back, having won the challenger slot in 1992. Even that great European maritime nation, Switzerland, looks like making it to the start line.

A sensible campaign can be put together for around pounds 10 million. Five partners putting in pounds 2m each over two or three years would barely dent the marketing budgets of a surprising number of Britain's big companies. They have all been approached and all, so far, have said no. Britain has the technological resources to test, design and build a competitive boat. But, despite considerable work with the help of BAe and SG, plus the offer of tank-testing support from the Defence Establishment Research Agency, not a single model has been built. The Kiwis, with a population not much more than one twentieth of Britain's, have been in the tank at Southampton's Woolfson Institute for almost all the five years since they became only the second nation in history to take the Cup away from the Americans.

There is also enough sailing talent in the UK to handle the boats and take on the opposition, though there is a transition from an older guard to a newer one taking place. There was always a line of thinking that a presence at the 2000 Cup would, in the absence of a breakthrough design, be only one half of a double challenge with the second, perhaps in 2003, made crucially stronger by a British presence at the first.

Reasons given for the lack of commercial backing range from the venue - New Zealand is a long way to take guests - to the time zone - racing would take place in the early hours of a European morning - to the uncertainty over the extent of television coverage, for which a base deal was agreed only last month.

But what claims to be sport's oldest trophy has a mystique which transcends the normal. It has always produced Machiavellian skulduggery and larger- than-life characters, intriguing both non-sports fans as well as those who would watch anything from the football World Cup to a cockroach race. Perhaps too large, according to the man who last skippered a British challenge, Harry Cudmore. The America's Cup, he feels, is such a large prospect that any individual backers for a challenge may face the accusation of being on a major ego trip. Watching the Alan Bonds, Peter de Savarys and Bill Kochs strutting the America's Cup catwalk has bred an atmosphere of caution. "I have talked to the Germans, who are also not there, and they feel the same," Cudmore says. "It's just too high profile, the wrong image."

Except that the America's Cup is a superb marketing platform. However, Cudmore feels the courtship between sportsmen and boardrooms has been conducted on the wrong footing, and he admits he is not a man for corporate- speak.

The hope is that the sport's national governing body, the Royal Yachting Association, will pick up the ball and run with it. It tried in January and February but tripped up. "There is support for yachting in the UK, but it tends to be for adventure things like amateur round-the-world races or single-handed races rather than the mainstream," he says. "The only grand prix money has tended to come from tobacco companies."

Yet Cudmore points to a new, more ambitious leadership, which could succeed where senior, establishment yacht clubs have failed.

The America's Cup itself also needs a new direction and a new directorate. It is not too early to start work on both problems, with the blatantly parochial self-interest of British participation taking priority.