AMERICA’S CUP HISTORY 1983 - 2013
The 31st America’s Cup 2003
After the Team New Zealand had successfully
defended the AC 2000 with its first class NZL-60,
both the LVC 2002/03 and the AC were again held
in the Hauraki Gulf of Auckland.
A yacht club from a landlocked country (.. "the
land-locked Switzerland .... with no arm to the sea
..") challenged for the first time the AC and
brought it back to Europe after 152 years.
Money was the most important role. The New
Zealand team was falling apart. More than 30 crew
members have been bought up mainly by Alinghi
and OneWorld.
From the sail numbers SWE-63 (Örn = eagle) to
NZL-82 20 new yachts were built.
Ilbruk Challenge, supported by the entrepreneur
and off-shore sailor Michael Ilbruk was the first
German team ever signing up its challenge.
As the challenge was subsequently withdrawn,
their GER-68 was launched, but not completed.
As in many previous cases before the LVC showed a lot more candidates interested in a challeng
than the 9 remaining teams
The New Zealand journalist and photographer Ivor Wilkins described them as "a pack of 9 hungry
challengers, many of them supported by the richest men in the world and armed with transplanted
New Zealand talents and their ingenuity."
SUI-64, the winner of
the AC 2003
NZL-82 the hapless
defender of the AC
2003
AC 2003
A yacht club from a landlocked country (.. "the land-locked Switzerland
.... with no arm to the sea ..") challenged for its first time the AC
