Twenty
six syndicates in Valencia (17/03/04) (source
: Las
Provincias)
On April 8th, no less than
26 applicants will be in the "Palau de Congresos"
of Valencia for the first meeting of interested teams
for the 32nd Defense.
During the meeting, ACM will release details about
the marketing plan for the event, the services that
will be provided to the teams, and the challenger
bases to be located in the new AC Village, " El Bacon
de Mar ".
The validity of any of these teams must be relativized
(an "interested team" doesn't necessarily become a
competitor), but this figure is in itself a good surprise.
It's also a real success for ACM which has to be linked
with the signing of an amended protocol and the publication
of the Terms of Challenge.
As Michel Bonnefous underlined in January, with these
two fundamental documents, the organizers of the 32nd
America's Cup " are providing strong support to all
teams in a number of significant areas ".
In spite of Chris Dickson has said that $100 million
is a "realistic" budget for 2007, smallest budgets
seem now possible with this new documents (€ 30/40
million).
The challenge deadline is 17 December 2004. Challengers
will be accepted after that date until 29 April, 2005
if accompanied by a late fee.
