China Cup postponed

Insufficient entries for Golding race from London to China

Extreme Sailing Ltd has today announced that The China Cup 2006 has been postponed pending further discussions with the IMOCA Executive. This announcement follows the insufficient number of entries received by the closing date for entries.

"It is with great regret and after much deliberation that we have had to take this decision. It had become apparent over the last few weeks that many of the potential China Cup 2006 race entrants were facing major barriers from proceeding with their entry to the race,” commented event creator, Mike Golding

In recognition of these difficulties and following discussions with skippers and teams, Extreme Sailing Ltd, revised the format of the event to make it easier for a greater number of teams to participate.

The modified event was to be a shortened version of the race in China, from Hong Kong to Qingdao with a finish in Shanghai. In an effort to further assist the teams, Extreme Sailing had offered free shipping from Europe to Hong Kong and back from Shanghai for the first six registered entries.

Despite these actions, only four teams were registered at the deadline date. Extreme Sailing does not feel that this represents a credible racing fleet and has therefore postponed the event pending further discussions with IMOCA.

"After much discussion with Extreme Sailing, we have decided that, due to the size of the potential participating fleet, it would be better to postpone the race. However, The China Cup, which is a great concept, will have an ongoing slot in the IMOCA calendar," commented Luc Talbourdet, the President of IMOCA.

The China Cup was originally conceived as an international ocean race for Open 60s from London to Shanghai to be run in March 2006. It was a simple concept conceived by Extreme Sailing Ltd and presented to IMOCA in mid-July 2005 in response to their request for such a race. The IMOCA Executive Council voted in favour of this concept at the end of July and additionally, for historical and IMOCA Class inclusive reasons, stipulated that Extreme Sailing should endeavour to create additional stopovers in Brest and Qingdao.

From the beginning of August 2005 onwards extensive, protracted and finally successful negotiations were held with these additional city authorities. This led to their commitment to become Race city partners and the inclusion of stopovers in Brest and Qingdao. The China Cup 2006 thus became a race from London to Shanghai via Brest and Qingdao.

In October at an EGM of the IMOCA class in Paris, 51 interested parties and members voted on this format for The China Cup 2006. The outcome was clear with 48 votes in favour, one vote against and two abstentions. It was with this endorsement, that the race was launched and the first of several public statements was drawn up and distributed to inform and inspire the media and sailing community.

Given the short timeframe in which this complex event was to be created, Extreme Sailing worked simultaneously with the four host cities, and at the same time generated sponsor interest in both Europe and China.

The team was encouraged by the fantastic support they received in favour of the event by the registered teams, the host cities, the IMOCA Executive and the media. Having secured full support, and formal acknowledgment from each host city and sufficient sponsor funding to guarantee that the event could be operated to IMOCA’s rigorous requirements, Extreme Sailing issued a formal Notice of Race (NOR) in early November. Given the timeframe and the overwhelming results from the earlier class voting on the event, it was anticipated that the response to this NOR ‘contract invitation’ would be quick.

However, when The China Cup Team met again with IMOCA members and interested parties in late November in Brazil, at the end of the Transat Jacques Vabre, it became clear that the IMOCA fleet was no longer able to fulfil the requirement to provide a minimum level of entry for the race. At that point two of the anticipated participant teams withdrew due to a change of circumstances.

The barriers to entry given by IMOCA and the prospective teams included high participation cost and uncertainty of some teams in raising the necessary sponsor funding within the timescale. At this meeting it was agreed that Saturday 17 December would become the deadline for entries with a minimum of seven teams required to justify the original event format.

Following the meeting in Brazil, one additional team registered a commitment to be on the start line in London. It became increasingly clear that the fleet is in a state of evolution and strong growth with many teams either negotiating with their current or new sponsors, or alternatively in a new build for the coming four year cycle of events. While skippers on the whole remained keen to participate, this situation had created an environment that could not generate sufficient entries to form a credible yacht racing fleet for such a major and long event in early 2006.

With this in mind, Extreme Sailing revised the format of the event to make it easier for a greater number of teams to participate. The revised format would have seen the boats shipped directly to Hong Kong at the beginning of April. The China Cup would have started from Hong Kong on 7 May, racing to Qingdao before continuing to the finish line at Shanghai. The boats would then be repatriated to Europe. Costs for shipping for the first six boats were to have been met by Extreme Sailing.

A new deadline for this revised event was set as 23rd December 2006 and with entries again not meeting Extreme Sailing’s minimum requirement the decision has been taken to postpone the event.