On December 3 the GGYC hosted a meeting of 14 potential challengers, all of whom committed to working to get the event back on track. The next day, GGYC presented Alinghi with a formal proposal for a conventional, mutual consent 33rd America’s Cup protocol with the support of several challengers. Alinghi didn’t formally respond.

December 6: GGYC publicly calls for Alinghi to respond. So, on December 10, the Ice Cream Salesman declines to enter into specific negotiations on the earlier GGYC proposals.

After a brief Christmas respite, Alinghi’s new lawyers (the Ice Cream Salesman had nominated his first set of lawyers as ‘the best’) filed papers on December 27 seeking to ‘renew and re-argue’ the case before the New York State Supreme Court. They seem convinced the GGYC will turn up and race in a monohull measuring 90m loa by 90m beam with a 3ft draft. The GGYC was less than inspired by this turn of events.

Two days later, on December 29, GGYC team CEO Russell Coutts cleared it all up by announcing they would challenge for AC33 in a 90m catamaran.

The current situation with Alinghi totally ignoring anything it doesn’t like will mean a ‘calendar call’ at the court on January 11 at which the court clerk calls each motion returnable on that date, collects relevant papers and then distributes them to the judge. There will be no oral argument on the 11th, but there will be arguments presented on January 14.

What will happen then is anybody’s call. But will anybody care?