I’ve just checked the date on my last blog post, and it was six weeks ago. But I guess that’s about the level of attention that the America’s Cup deserves right now - just the occasional glance over the shoulder towards the court room… yup, still there, bickering away…
BBC correspondent Robert Peston has just written a book (Who Runs Britain?) on the rise and rise of the super rich, the market failings that have allowed this to happen and the distorting impact that it has had on British society and the economy - hey, Robert, over here, you missed a bit…
It’s a shame we don’t have the collective will to start Rule 69 proceedings, chuck a couple of people out of the sport for five years and see how the dust settles on that. In fact, if Team New Zealand wanted to go down the legal route, it might have been just as profitable to turn up at the next Farr 40 regatta and slap a Rule 69 report on the desk of the protest committee. The rule is ambiguous - as far as I can see - on whether bringing the sport into disrepute has to be done at the actual regatta in question…
But hold on, I’m getting ahead of myself - back at the ranch house the court room affairs have (as always) been best reported by Cory Friedman for Scuttlebutt, and there have been four additions to the oeuvre since we last posted – someone is sticking with it, at least...
Part 14 was on the January 23rd hearing in the New York State Supreme Court before the venerable Justice Cahn. Nothing much happened, except the Société Nautique de Genève's (SNG) new lawyer, Barry Ostrager, managed to obfuscate and stall sufficiently that the GGYC team couldn’t get the killer blow in. Come back later.
And so they did, on January 28th, when the hearing was covered in Friedman’s Part 15. This was mostly about the whole ‘Keel Yacht’ issue that SNG are using to try and establish that the Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC) challenge is invalid. Friedman covers where the issue came from (the words were copied from the 1987 Kiwi challenge that led the Cup into court last time), and why it threatens GGYC when they are so close to getting a ten count on SNG…
Personally, like Friedman, I think the use of ‘keel yacht’ in the challenge paperwork is irrelevant and have said so before – GGYC provided the dimensions in their challenge, and SNG can sail what the hell they like anyway, as evidenced by the court’s decision in 1988. In that case, the court allowed San Diego’s multihull to race against New Zealand’s monohull behemoth. But whether or not this judge, Justice Cahn, will see it that way once he’s waded through the blizzard of paperwork that SNG have presented to murk up the case remains to be seen.
GGYC finally got around to making this fundamental point in a letter to the Judge, sent after the January 28th hearing. It was the subject of Freidman’s Part 16 which finished with a nice summary of the state of affairs that still pertains (in this court case), at this point in time:
‘GGYC argues that Justice Cahn should sign its proposed order, dated December 11, 2007 (an October 2008 match), and send the case to the Appellate Division, First Department, if SNG, as promised, appeals. SNG argues that Justice Cahn should DSQ GGYC or refer the matter to ISAF, without, however, citing any provision of the New York Civil Practice and Rules that would authorize Justice Cahn to make such a referral, or provide a mechanism to do so.’
And so, the teams continue their preparations for the DoG fight in Cats...
Not a lot else has happened in the intervening six weeks, or even in the two months since the last full update. There was talk in an Italian newspaper, Fare Vela (and reported in English here) that a race circuit might be set up for the Version 5 Cup boats, with the possible venues including Cowes, Kiel, Trieste, and Valencia, with Alinghi, United Internet Team Germany, TeamOrigin, Shosholoza, Victory Challenge, Desafìo, one of the two French Teams, Emirates Team New Zealand and one team from China all supposedly involved.
And the Brits, in the shape of the Royal Thames Yacht Club (RTYC) and Team Origin, filed a Deed of Gift Challenge with SNG. This seemed to be something of an ass-covering exercise, just in case a vacuum should open up with the judge throwing out the Golden Gate Yacht Club’s challenge (on the basis of the keel-yacht), along with the earlier first challenge from Club Nautico Espanol de Vela (CNEV) that’s been the bone of contention all along. But until both of these things happens, I don’t think we have to worry too much about this one…
Each of the putative challenging teams is responding in a different way to the circumstances. Team Germany will begin laying off its sailors at the end of the month (but they may get new contracts if they race in the proposed Version 5 series, which they seem to be prime motivators behind). That includes Sport Director, Joechen Schuemann, who must be dead pleased he left Alinghi for the German challenge. Michael Scheeren, the team’s owner, was quoted by German magazine Focus as saying, ‘A certain number of contracts, including Jochen Schuemann's, expires on March 31 and we will not be extended. We cannot continue to finance a large team without knowing more about where the America's Cup will take place in 2011.’
So Schuemann and his mates have headed off to race TP52s with Harm Muller-Spreer's Platoon. Muller-Spreer has gone from steering his own boat and racing with a few mates, to a fully cocked pseudo-Cup programme in the space of two seasons. And this quote from the Adonnante article gives you an idea of how those changes might play out in the wider TP52 class:
‘The only thing about the MedCup circuit that, honestly, bothers me is that- it is going to be very professional of course - we have to take care that is not taking off like the Formula 1 motor racing where one guy, Bernie Ecclestone, is dominating everything. The MedCup is a business for some, it is about earning money, but my feeling is that they have to ask the owners of the boats a little more, because without the owners and the teams there is no MedCup… At the end it is private owners who are pushing it forwards and these professional teams are coming forward. At the beginning it was the King of Spain, and guys like this, and you have to keep asking them as well.’
I talked about the possible impact the Cup hiatus might have on the TP52s back on January 2nd, and here’s evidence of the pressure it is putting the owners under. Watch this space.
But it’s the response of Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ) to their predicament that has caused the most excitement of late. They have also been laying off staff – nearly a third of the team so far. Then, at the beginning of March, the Kiwis lodged their own set of papers with the New York Courts, in two separate cases. In the first, SNG, Team Alinghi, Ernesto Bertarelli and America's Cup Management (ACM) are all charged in the New York State Supreme Court with breach of contract in not organising an America’s Cup in 2009 – for which ETNZ claim they had a binding agreement (Justice Cahn has been assigned to this case).
And just for good measure, there’s an anti-trust case in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, against the same group, over the way they have handled organizing the Cup so far, and the pretty pass to which it has brought us all. Dalton and co want damages in excess of US$12 million - Alinghi were quick to respond and Dalton explained the background in an interview in which the - previously very pro-Alinghi and partisan - BYM website agreed that CNEV was not a valid yacht club....
Once again, Cory Friedman waded into the breach, with Part 17, and Friedman’s conclusion was… don’t hold your breath. None of this is going to get settled any time soon, and almost certainly not before the main GGYC v SNG case. If you want to know why, I’ll refer you to Part 17, 'cos I’m going to leave it right there. Hell will freeze over before we see another Cup match at this rate of progress...
But come October, there will be guys racing around the planet at Mach 3 with their ass on fire, and it’s going to be a whole lot more interesting than this - did I mention I’m going to be writing for the Volvo Ocean Race? Now that is something we can all get excited about....
www.markchisnell.com
Mark Chisnell ©
BBC correspondent Robert Peston has just written a book (Who Runs Britain?) on the rise and rise of the super rich, the market failings that have allowed this to happen and the distorting impact that it has had on British society and the economy - hey, Robert, over here, you missed a bit…
It’s a shame we don’t have the collective will to start Rule 69 proceedings, chuck a couple of people out of the sport for five years and see how the dust settles on that. In fact, if Team New Zealand wanted to go down the legal route, it might have been just as profitable to turn up at the next Farr 40 regatta and slap a Rule 69 report on the desk of the protest committee. The rule is ambiguous - as far as I can see - on whether bringing the sport into disrepute has to be done at the actual regatta in question…
But hold on, I’m getting ahead of myself - back at the ranch house the court room affairs have (as always) been best reported by Cory Friedman for Scuttlebutt, and there have been four additions to the oeuvre since we last posted – someone is sticking with it, at least...
Part 14 was on the January 23rd hearing in the New York State Supreme Court before the venerable Justice Cahn. Nothing much happened, except the Société Nautique de Genève's (SNG) new lawyer, Barry Ostrager, managed to obfuscate and stall sufficiently that the GGYC team couldn’t get the killer blow in. Come back later.
And so they did, on January 28th, when the hearing was covered in Friedman’s Part 15. This was mostly about the whole ‘Keel Yacht’ issue that SNG are using to try and establish that the Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC) challenge is invalid. Friedman covers where the issue came from (the words were copied from the 1987 Kiwi challenge that led the Cup into court last time), and why it threatens GGYC when they are so close to getting a ten count on SNG…
Personally, like Friedman, I think the use of ‘keel yacht’ in the challenge paperwork is irrelevant and have said so before – GGYC provided the dimensions in their challenge, and SNG can sail what the hell they like anyway, as evidenced by the court’s decision in 1988. In that case, the court allowed San Diego’s multihull to race against New Zealand’s monohull behemoth. But whether or not this judge, Justice Cahn, will see it that way once he’s waded through the blizzard of paperwork that SNG have presented to murk up the case remains to be seen.
GGYC finally got around to making this fundamental point in a letter to the Judge, sent after the January 28th hearing. It was the subject of Freidman’s Part 16 which finished with a nice summary of the state of affairs that still pertains (in this court case), at this point in time:
‘GGYC argues that Justice Cahn should sign its proposed order, dated December 11, 2007 (an October 2008 match), and send the case to the Appellate Division, First Department, if SNG, as promised, appeals. SNG argues that Justice Cahn should DSQ GGYC or refer the matter to ISAF, without, however, citing any provision of the New York Civil Practice and Rules that would authorize Justice Cahn to make such a referral, or provide a mechanism to do so.’
And so, the teams continue their preparations for the DoG fight in Cats...
Not a lot else has happened in the intervening six weeks, or even in the two months since the last full update. There was talk in an Italian newspaper, Fare Vela (and reported in English here) that a race circuit might be set up for the Version 5 Cup boats, with the possible venues including Cowes, Kiel, Trieste, and Valencia, with Alinghi, United Internet Team Germany, TeamOrigin, Shosholoza, Victory Challenge, Desafìo, one of the two French Teams, Emirates Team New Zealand and one team from China all supposedly involved.
And the Brits, in the shape of the Royal Thames Yacht Club (RTYC) and Team Origin, filed a Deed of Gift Challenge with SNG. This seemed to be something of an ass-covering exercise, just in case a vacuum should open up with the judge throwing out the Golden Gate Yacht Club’s challenge (on the basis of the keel-yacht), along with the earlier first challenge from Club Nautico Espanol de Vela (CNEV) that’s been the bone of contention all along. But until both of these things happens, I don’t think we have to worry too much about this one…
Each of the putative challenging teams is responding in a different way to the circumstances. Team Germany will begin laying off its sailors at the end of the month (but they may get new contracts if they race in the proposed Version 5 series, which they seem to be prime motivators behind). That includes Sport Director, Joechen Schuemann, who must be dead pleased he left Alinghi for the German challenge. Michael Scheeren, the team’s owner, was quoted by German magazine Focus as saying, ‘A certain number of contracts, including Jochen Schuemann's, expires on March 31 and we will not be extended. We cannot continue to finance a large team without knowing more about where the America's Cup will take place in 2011.’
So Schuemann and his mates have headed off to race TP52s with Harm Muller-Spreer's Platoon. Muller-Spreer has gone from steering his own boat and racing with a few mates, to a fully cocked pseudo-Cup programme in the space of two seasons. And this quote from the Adonnante article gives you an idea of how those changes might play out in the wider TP52 class:
‘The only thing about the MedCup circuit that, honestly, bothers me is that- it is going to be very professional of course - we have to take care that is not taking off like the Formula 1 motor racing where one guy, Bernie Ecclestone, is dominating everything. The MedCup is a business for some, it is about earning money, but my feeling is that they have to ask the owners of the boats a little more, because without the owners and the teams there is no MedCup… At the end it is private owners who are pushing it forwards and these professional teams are coming forward. At the beginning it was the King of Spain, and guys like this, and you have to keep asking them as well.’
I talked about the possible impact the Cup hiatus might have on the TP52s back on January 2nd, and here’s evidence of the pressure it is putting the owners under. Watch this space.
But it’s the response of Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ) to their predicament that has caused the most excitement of late. They have also been laying off staff – nearly a third of the team so far. Then, at the beginning of March, the Kiwis lodged their own set of papers with the New York Courts, in two separate cases. In the first, SNG, Team Alinghi, Ernesto Bertarelli and America's Cup Management (ACM) are all charged in the New York State Supreme Court with breach of contract in not organising an America’s Cup in 2009 – for which ETNZ claim they had a binding agreement (Justice Cahn has been assigned to this case).
And just for good measure, there’s an anti-trust case in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, against the same group, over the way they have handled organizing the Cup so far, and the pretty pass to which it has brought us all. Dalton and co want damages in excess of US$12 million - Alinghi were quick to respond and Dalton explained the background in an interview in which the - previously very pro-Alinghi and partisan - BYM website agreed that CNEV was not a valid yacht club....
Once again, Cory Friedman waded into the breach, with Part 17, and Friedman’s conclusion was… don’t hold your breath. None of this is going to get settled any time soon, and almost certainly not before the main GGYC v SNG case. If you want to know why, I’ll refer you to Part 17, 'cos I’m going to leave it right there. Hell will freeze over before we see another Cup match at this rate of progress...
But come October, there will be guys racing around the planet at Mach 3 with their ass on fire, and it’s going to be a whole lot more interesting than this - did I mention I’m going to be writing for the Volvo Ocean Race? Now that is something we can all get excited about....
www.markchisnell.com
Mark Chisnell ©