The Real Deal

There has been some confusion about the "real" Little America's Cup, and Damien Smith the Project Naval Architect from the Australian Catamaran Challenge (see below) sent us the following which I think helps clarify. Hey, you multihull speed freaks must think we've gone fucking bonkers - THREE cat pieces on the front page! - Enjoy.

We made clear our intention to challenge for the Little America's Cup to the trustees at Sea Cliff YC in New York over 18 months ago. At that stage they said they would welcome a challenge despite more than four years elapsing between challenges. Based on their assurances we proceeded to design and build a new challenger spending a significant amount of money in the process.

When we challenged the trustees rejected our challenge and began to organise a factory backed one design event. Our syndicate has challenged the last winner Steve Clake's Cogito syndicate directly. He has accepted our challenge and one from the British Invictus team.

The trophy held by the trustees is known as the ICCT. We will be racing big sexy cats with wings in September 2004. "Little America's Cup" was always a colloquial term that really belongs with our race rather than an event for out of the box one designs

I hope this clears things up a bit. There is more info on our web site www.lacautralia.com

Your fellow anarchist,

Damien Smith