Sailing: Golden Gate club querie Spanish Cup challenge

In the first warning shots of a row that could end up in the New York courts, Oracle boss Larry Ellison yesterday issued his own challenge for the next America's Cup and called into question the validity of the finish-line challenge from Spain at the end of the most recent contest on 3 July.

On Wednesday, his Golden Gate Yacht Club representative Melinda Erkelens and syndicate representative Tom Ehman went to the club which represents Ernesto Bertarelli, the Société Nautique de Genève, and presented a new challenge. The GGYC then said the challenge from the Club Nautico Espanol de Vela was invalid.

"It appears that CNEV is a new yacht club specifically created for this challenge and, as such, fails to meet the requirements as defined by the [1857] Deed of Gift." This requires that a challenging club conducts an annual regatta on the sea.

"CNEV has never conducted a regatta and cannot be a legitimate challenger," said GGYC. "Furthermore, the race protocol for the 33rd America's Cup is invalid because they fail to specify the rules for the next Cup by omitting a specific date, location and class of boat."

If the challenge is rejected, and the Spanish refuse to back down then legal action could begin next week.

In Cascais, Nick Dempsey took Britain's fourth medal of the world championships, bronze in the windsurfer.