It lays out the recent history of the legal wranglings.
At a high level, it sounds to me that there was a scheduling issue for the challenger of record, the Spanish club, and a NYC court has ruled to disqualify them as challenger of record and appoint the second challenger the BMW team from Golden Gate Y/C as challenger of record.
Here’s where it gets messy.
The Golden Gate challenge has a (wierd or mistaken) boat description of 90 feet by 90 feet?? The judge did not recognise this problem.
The case continues with the parties trying to get the hearing reopened.
In a way this is reminiscent of the New Zealand challenge to San Diego when they challenged with a huge monohull and Connor responded with the catamaran.
It sounds like this case was brought by the BMW team and is a powerplay to influence the direction of the AC. This can occur because the original deed places a lot of power in the hands of the challenger of record. The jurisdiction sits in New York, and the interested parties include the New York Yacht Club (custodians of the deed), and the current holder and the challenger. For the last vew years there was an agreement that the yachts would be as specified by the Americas Cup Class, and that the registered teams would have input as class members. That agreement seems to be falling apart and a scheduling item has opened a opportunity to upset the current applecart.
The major problem for us enthusiasts is that creating all these unknowns will deter challengers and delay the next AC.
do you suppose, with egos that big between the two major players, this will ever be resolved? [said with tongue-in-cheek]
As the saying goes - " time for popcorn" - will be interesting to watch this sort itself out. Did any of this go on behind the scenes in the sdays of the 12 Meters?
with out a doubt. but in the days of the bygone 12s the people who sailed the boats, and even the people who owned them had big enough bls and were big enough men to deal with their problems like men, without running to their mommy in court. there is no doubt about it larry ellison is a puy, and as XSracing notes, old ernesto can be blamed (there is always someway to pin it on him:devil3:) for every problem in the sailing world today. how did our sport get taken over by such wankers?:mad:
Broadly generalizing, boats are a rich man’s toy and rich men get that way because they play to win, often regardless of how … thus nothing new I’m afraid, the protest room will always be overpopulated by lawyers playing out cityside antics.
Going back about a century in the America’s Cup we had Sir Thomas Lipton as a competitor. He spent a great deal trying to win the cup and his sportsmanship, winning or losing was a model for all of us. It was his bad luck that we had Nat Herreschoff designing our boats. A lot of great people on both sides competed on and off the boats and if there were lawyers involved it was very low key.
In this age of high tech we seem to have gotten an Anything Goes attitude. That’s what I don’t like about any sport.
There was a commercial a while back on the subject of Basketball. The message was. “You are allowed six fouls, use them wisely.” Fouling as a deliberate tactic is not what games are about to me, and if I can win a boat race in court I have lost all interest in that kind of competition.
Just an update - of sorts, given it comes via SAILING ANARCHY … (which usually can be reliable about “certain topics” )
While Alinghi’s new best lawyers fumble around the NY Courts, the boys from Switzerland are starting to get busy. With a multihull America’s Cup a near certainty in 2008, we’re going to see a lot less TP52 and Farr 40 action from Alinghi and Oracle and a lot more cat and trimaran racing. If there was any doubt about this, there isn’t anymore: We just learned that Alinghi closed the sale of the Extreme 40 “Basilica Racing” this week, and she’ll be packed up in her box for shipping within a few days. Basilica won last year’s inshore one-design championship for the VX40s (the iShares Cup) with Robert Greenhalgh helming the beast. We hear rumors that Alinghi is looking to pick up another X40, and that BMW Oracle is trying to decide what they’ll be using as a multihull match-racing trainer, but they haven’t pulled the trigger yet. The iShares Cup recently announced its schedule for 2008, and the first event is going to be in Switzerland. Coincidence?
As part of their training for Basilica, Rob Greenhalgh and brother Peter sailed a handful of big beach cat events - Might we see Coutts and Butterworth squaring off in a big beach cat fleet this spring?
I’ve been following the legal action as well, and a AC race in multis would have to change the persepective of all sailors towards multis. They may not be the best match racing boats, but it will certainly be a show if multis are racing. Also, recently there has been much press on the around the world record attempts in large multis. With these together I feel it’s a great time to be a multi enthusiest.
The legal wranglings continue. . . .NZ is now suing both Alingi and the BMW teams because of the financial losses caused by the delays caused by the first court case. . .
I think what may happen in october will be something like the 88 cup disaster, and that it will go back to the AC90 if the multi event ever happens. and as for rc multihulls, Ernie already had some extreme 40’s delivered. they were used as in-port entertainment during the 05-06 volvo ocean race. BMWO has bought a D35??(multi) team which is a class that races on lake Geneve. I don’t think any markups are in order, just publicity would be nice. I discovered rc sailing during the last cup and i’m sure more will come with each cup
I’m siding with TNZ on this one, i was looking forward to going to valencia in 2009 for the cup, visiting a friend in Germany, then watching the Tour de France:D, looks like it’ll be delayed to 2011:mad:
:rolleyes:
:mad: