Day after day, the 33rd America's Cup appears headed toward a "Deed of Gift" race next year.

The best-of-three duel between Alinghi and Oracle Racing scenario drew nearer yesterday, when Ernesto Bertarelli clearly refused to stage a full regatta with a challengers series in 2009.

"I can continue to negotiate the Protocol that we agreed with the Spanish but we have already spent four months talking about this, and it seems impossible to find a solution", Bertarelli told Valencia daily Las Provincias. "2009 is now quite impossible, but if we negotiate, why not 2010 or 2011".

Meanwhile, BMW Oracle's Tom Ehman said that Oracle still wants a traditional America’s Cup regatta at Valencia in 2009, with an independent challenger series and the new AC90.

Alinghi and BMW Oracle Racing officials are scheduled to meet in New York on Monday - the same day that Judge Herman J. Cahn is expected to issue his full written decision, which Alinghi is awaiting before deciding its course of action.

"We will have a meeting with BMW Oracle Racing next Monday in New York", Bertarelli said. "We will talk of many things amongst which will be this new proposal".

"We will also have to talk about the legal situation as it currently stands and the options that exist and the most probable thing is that if we arrive at an agreement that we will leave behind us the idea of competing in multihulls".

It's nevertheless possible to doubt the good will of the Larry Ellison's Team during the meeting as, according to Alinghi design team coordinator Grant Simmer, they already have a leg up for a Deed of Gift race.

"They've already started working on the design (for a catamaran)", he said. " We know they signed up some multihull designers – Van Peteghem and Lauriot Prévost - in July and a team headed up by Franck Cammas are designing a multihull".

"I've called around to employ some experts, but BMW Oracle Racing has already hired them", he added. "They're ahead of us."