A week before the entry deadline of 15 December imposed by Alinghi, the Golden Gate Yacht Club rejected the opportunity to sign up to the 33rd America's Cup in no uncertain terms. "This is to officially inform you that the Golden Gate Yacht Club and the BMW ORACLE Racing team will not submit an entry by December 15 for the regatta that SNG is organizing, which we do not consider a legitimate America's Cup," wrote Commodore Marcus Young to Pierre-Yves Firmenich, his counterpart at the Société Nautique de Genève. "Rather, we will now focus our efforts and attention on winning our appeal before the New York State Court of Appeals - clearly the only avenue left open to create a fair and competitive challenge that preserves the integrity, prestige and tradition of yacht racing's pinnacle event in keeping with terms of the America's Cup Deed of Gift."

Although Alinghi appears to have secured the approval of a number of other challengers, as reported in last month's America's Cup Diary, the GGYC still feels that the Swiss are holding the Cup to ransom. Commodore Young's letter concludes: "SNG and CNEV are entitled to hold a different kind of sailing regatta if you choose. But without several top competitors and major sponsors, without fair rules, without any regard for 157 years of America's Cup tradition, and, most importantly, with your Club's continuing reckless disregard for the Deed of Gift, it won't be an America's Cup. It will simply be an Alinghi Cup, and we see no good reason to participate."

Paco Latorre, communication director for Alinghi, fired back his return salvo later that day: "Today's announcement by BMW Oracle and Golden Gate Yacht Club is not a surprise because they have never shown any interest in joining the competition with the 14 teams which are currently officially entered. Instead, at every turn, they have chosen to insist on pursuing their selfish legal strategy. Their latest letter shows a tremendous arrogance and lack of respect for the teams involved in the process of working with Société Nautique Genève (SNG) and Alinghi to organise the 33rd America's Cup."

So any sense of an entente cordiale that might have been developing over the past few weeks has been smashed to smithereens. It must have been an uncomfortable moment for Brad Butterworth and Tom Ehman to be sharing the stage at the World Yacht Racing Forum in Monaco just two days after these public statements. If audience applause is any measure of how the wider sailing community feels about such things, then the winner was not Butterworth or Ehman, but Paul Cayard who called for the Cup to be managed by an independent body.

"This is not about Alinghi and BMW ORACLE Racing; it is about the future of the America's Cup," said the skipper of Desafio Espanol. "We cannot let this sport do what it wants to us. We need a better administration, with fair rules. I am convinced that we can modify the Protocol and yet perpetuate the spirit of the event. The mechanism set by America's Cup Management is great; however this body should not belong to one of the competitors." Amen to that.

Cayard, more than most, would like to see a swift resolution to this impasse. His job might well depend on it, because chief sponsor of the Spanish team - energy giant Iberdrola - is considering pulling out of its sponsorship of Desafio Espanol, and the team members' contracts may not be renewed beyond the end of December. German car manufacturer Audi has already pulled out of supporting Jochen Schumann's Team Germany. So the question hanging over the Cup right now is, even if and when some resolution is found out of the Alinghi/BMW Oracle mire, who will actually have the financial clout to be able to enter a team? It seems that under the current economic climate, the America's Cup might be forced to return to its former state of surviving on the patronage of wealthy individuals. The commercial justification for the Cup was never easy even when the good times were rolling. And the good times are no longer rolling, as you might have noticed.