The Sausalito Cup, the first regatta of The Challenge Series for this season, kicked off on Friday June 20. Yachts scheduled to race include USA-11, Oracle BMW Racing, NZL-20, Il Moro di Venezia and NZL-14.

Former members on Seattle's OneWorld Challenge were on board NZL-20, with Charlie McKee as tactician and David Endean on bow.

"It's a tough course to sail with very little upwind and lots of reaching," said John Sweeney, co-founder of The Challenge Series.

All the yachts in the fleet with the exception of Oracle BMW Racing are from the International America's Cup Class of '92 and last season were 80% through their restoration. "Restoration is complete, NZL-20 spent the winter in New Zealand undergoing a major refit, all the yachts in the fleet have new North 3DL sails, new paint and are ready to race," said Sweeney.

Larry Ellison and his Oracle team aboard USA-76 handily dispatched a fleet of 1992-vintage (IACC) boats in three days of racing, Friday through Sunday.

As regattas go, this was more of a pageant - unless you were racing for second, where things did get very back and forth between ITA-1 and NZL-20. With finish-line deltas of 5-15 minutes (over second place, mind you), little was proved about state-of-the-art IACC racing. - Source: www.challenge-series.com/ AND www.sailmagazine.com/news/NEWS/

EDITOR'S NOTE: The International America's Cup Class of San Francisco (IACCSF), announced that its annual Regatta Series has been officially named, The Challenge Series. The America's Cup Class yachts competing in the regattas will be described as The San Francisco Cup Class.

The complete 2003 IACCSF racing schedule is as follows: The Sausalito Cup - June 20-22, The Il Moro Trophy - July 25-27, The Golden Gate Cup - Sept. 6-14, and The 2003 IACC Worlds on Oct. 11-19.