2000 Louis Vuitton Cup
| 5th Louis Vuitton Cup | |
|---|---|
| Date | 18 October 1999 – 6 February 2000 |
| Winner |
 Prada Challenge
|
| Location | Auckland, New Zealand |
The 5th Louis Vuitton Cup was held in Auckland, New Zealand in 2000. The winner, Prada Challenge, went on to challenge for the 2000 America's Cup. It was the first time in the competition's history that there would not be an American challenger or defender.
After winning the 29th America's Cup, Team New Zealand immediately accepted the challenge from the New York Yacht Club and announced that the next Cup would be in 2000, with the Louis Vuitton Cup being in late 1999. This delay was to avoid conflicting with the 1997/98 Whitbread Round the World Race and give Auckland the time to build the necessary infrastructure to host the cup.
The New York Yacht Club was the challenger of record. By 31 January 1998 16 teams from 10 nations had made the $US 250,000 deposit to officially challenge for the America's Cup. In the end only 11 challenges from seven nations competed for the Louis Vuitton Cup. Hong Kong, British and Russian challenges withdrew while an American team and a French team merged into existing challenges.
A strong two boat challenge sponsored by Prada, the team was formed in 1997 and became an early favourite in Auckland. The team used designer German Frers who worked for Il Moro di Venezia in 1992. Francesco de Angelis was the skipper with Rod Davis acting as the sailing coach. Prada originally acquired two boats from the America3 syndicate before building ITA 45 and ITA 48.
Skippered by Paul Cayard, AmericaOne was one of two syndicates from the San Francisco Bay Area in 2000. AmericaOne purchased OneAustralia as a training boat before developing USA-49 and USA-61. The team included Tactician John Kostecki and Navigator Terry Hutchinson.
...
Wikipedia