Six months after announcing the Oatleys intended to compete in the next America's Cup via their Hamilton Island Yacht Club, the huge cost of funding such an ambition, along with the organising committee's apparent difficulty of bringing some of the race's events to the Whitsundays, resulted in the family pulling out.

Australia, which won the America's Cup in 1983, has not been in the cup competition for more than a decade, despite the fact Australian sailors are ranked among the world's best and have played critical roles in rival teams that have won the coveted cup.

While the Oatley family, which has spent millions of dollars on its Wild Oats sailing team and ranks as the single largest patron of competitive sailing in this country, is bitterly disappointed about having to pull out, as family patriarch Bob Oatley, 86, told PS: "In the end, it just wasn't financially viable."