Venture Cup in jeopardy after RYA refuses to sanction the race
Next month’s Venture Cup power boat race from London to Monaco has been refused approval by the Royal Yachting Association (RYA). The surprise decision makes it difficult for the race to go ahead in its current format on 7 June as originally planned.
The ruling came in a statement from the RYA saying: “It is with extreme disappointment that the RYA has found itself in the unfortunate position of having to inform the organisers of the Venture Offshore Cup Ltd and the Union Internationale Mononautique (UIM) that, as the appointed national authority for this event, we are no longer in a position to approve or host this event.”
The RYA fired a warning shot across the bows last week when it revealed that a substantial number of elements required to satisfy the conditions for race approval were still outstanding and set a deadline of 7 May for them all to be fulfilled.
Yesterday the RYA issued the following update: “Despite the huge efforts of the RYA, its committees and the organisers of the Venture Cup London to Monte Carlo race, the remaining information that is outstanding or partially outstanding has proven far too great to fully secure at this late stage in the event planning.”
The big question now is whether the organisers attempt to run it anyway, possibly as an unofficial rally rather than an authorised race, or postpone it in the hopes of gaining approval at a later date.
Either way the RYA’s decision not to grant its approval casts a heavy pall over the event and risks banging another nail into the coffin of endurance offshore racing just when it was beginning to emerge from the shadows.
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