Team Seacats

This coming Thursday, the teams of Alinghi and Oracle will meet in Valencia to discuss the date and/or specific terms of the DoG multihull match for the America’s Cup. At present, Oracle is saying that as per the terms outlined in the Deed of Gift, the match is to take place 10 months from the date of the formal challenge. The New York courts have upheld that the American team’s challenge is indeed valid so that gives Alinghi until July 2008 to prepare to meet Oracle on 90 foot multihulls in a place of their choosing. It appears that the general consensus is that if this went back into court again, that the time frame would also be upheld as it was Alinghi causing delay through additional legal action or refusing to negotiate that got us to this point.

So now what? Alinghi claims that they can’t possibly be prepared for a July 2008 match and have a 90 foot monster ready and have repeatedly insisted on a date set in July 2009. On one hand I feel a little sympathy for them, on the other I have to wonder if they’re telling the truth (or possibly trying to fulfill some other left-over contractual obligations from canceling the scheduled 2009 cup in Valencia), and on the other, I think it serves them right for causing all this mess in the first place by trying to redefine the America’s Cup in their favor and dragging this court case out to ridiculous lengths. Grant Dalton, via a Sailworld.com article (HERE) had this to say about the situation:

‘Why wait and give Alinghi time,’ he asked.

‘Alinghi created this environment we are in. Oracle can and should give them no favours, because there have certainly been no favours given to them, or any of us, by Alinghi.

‘Oracle’s intention was to get this back on a regular footing with rules that were more fair to everybody. That whole strategy is still in place.’

‘It is very frustrating when Alinghi who are slowly but surely getting punished, stuck with their stance of non-negotiation, and would probably have had to give away about half a marble of their from their bag of 100 marbles to get the whole thing back on track in October last year.

So the two parties are meeting in Valencia to discuss the date of the match. The Deed of Gift goes on to to say (I’m loosely paraphrasing) that a match held in the first half of the year should be held in the Southern Hemisphere. There are several advantages that a defender can get by specifying a location as locations can vary widely in typical wind speed and wave state. Alinghi is probably going to have to barter in order for the team of BMW/Oracle to agree to move the date. The only thing they have that would be of value to BMW/Oracle would be rights granted to the defender by the Deed such as determining the location of the event. It may also come down to establishing event parameters such as maximum wind speed or perhaps even modify the type of course and number of races. Alinghi is really over a barrel here because A) they claim they weren’t preparing for the match at the time the challenge was received, B) because their inaction in addressing any of the requests of BMW/Oracle left them no other option but to file with the courts, and C) due to the frivolous secondary court action Alinghi pursued. I’ll keep you posted on the outcome of Thursday’s meeting…if it happens.