On 9th January Team Origin, with the Royal Thames Yacht Club (RTYC), lodged a Deed of Gift (DOG) Challenge with the Société Nautique de Genève (SNG).

It called for a Match in 2011 in Valencia to be sailed in AC90 yachts and it outlined their willingness to consider a mutual consent match with a protocol along similar lines to the one signed in July last year.

The RTYC’s most recent challenge was lodged in anticipation of a potential vacuum occurring should the currently disputed Golden Gate Yacht Club’s (GGYC) DOG Challenge be found lacking by the New York Supreme Court’s Judge Cahn.

Accompanying the RTYC’s DOG Challenge documents was a covering letter from Team Origin to Ernesto Bertarelli, syndicate head of Alinghi and Pierre-Yves Firmenich, President of the SNG, signed by Sir Keith Mills, Team Origin Principal.

"We envisage discussing with you and hopefully agreeing alternative arrangements by mutual consent as contemplated in the Deed of Gift", wrote Sir Keith Mills. "Our intention would be to agree a Protocol and associated documents along similar lines to the ones negotiated with Challengers between July and November 2007."

"We are in favour of your original philosophy for the 33rd America’s Cup, the pillars of which came through clearly in the July 2007 Protocol, namely a mutual consent regatta, based in Valencia, with pre-regattas and sensible cost containment…".

The delay in Judge Cahn’s deliberations last week has opened up a second potential benefit from the RTYC’s new challenge. It could now also help secure a new trial protocol with the Swiss Defender that is sufficiently satisfactory to the GGYC for the American club to be sufficiently comfortable to drop its challenge, making way for the RTYC to become the Challenger of Record.