Team Seacats

While I had hoped to be able to announce yesterday that a date has been set for the America’s Cup match on monster 90 foot multi-hulls, it didn’t happen. Alinghi/SNG claims that OracleGGYC came to the table with no willingness to budge on the date – Oracle isn’t saying much at all other than they don’t “wish to disclose details of the discussion at this stage.” Alinghi filed for a hearing again with Justice Cahn for a ruling – obviously hoping to move the date due to the delays caused by the court hearings. GGYC pleaded the court for a quick hearing. Cahn delivers and, this afternoon, granted the hearing date for next week to hear arguments (but as in the past, there’s no guarantee for the delivery of a ruling).

Here’s the bit of the Deed of Gift language in dispute;

…The Challenging Club shall give ten months’ notice, in writing, naming the days for the proposed races; but no race shall be sailed in the days intervening between November 1st and May 1st…

It certainly doesn’t say what to do in the event the match is contested in court but it clearly says “The Challenging Club shall give ten month’s notice…”. GGYC did give ten months (actually 12 months) notice with their challenge. GGYC first filed motion that SNG has accepted an invalid challenge and that theirs should be the valid one. That was ruled on by Cahn making GGYC the official challenger based on their challenge. SNG then filed back to the courts disputing the validity of the same challenge because it included the phrase “keel yacht”. The Court dismissed this claim and again pronounced the GGYC challenge as the official one. The only official challenge is the challenge filed by GGYC in October….and it had the minimum 10 month challenge in it. I really don’t see how Alinghi is going to get out of this…even more so than the last motion they filed with the court.

The request for hearing to Justice Cahn issued by SNG/Alinghi’s legal team REALLY struck me as arrogant and bound to fail. In it, they dispute every ruling the Cahn has previously made in this case but then plead for more time to prepare for the match. They also hollowly claim that the Deed of Gift “Requires the Defender be Allowed No Less than 10 Months to Prepare for the Match”…read the verbiage from the actual deed in the above quote again and see if you agree with me that that is not even close to the the context provided in the wording of the Deed. Read Alinghi’s letter for yourself and decide. Hopefully this shouldn’t take long to hear from Cahn this time.

Apparently I got my days mixed up about the meeting in Valencia between BMW Oracle and Alinghi – the meeting took place today and the outcome is…back to court. It appears that Alinghi was unwilling to conceed any rights to have the date moved back so now they claim to start contesting the BMW Oracle claim that the 10 month period specified in the Deed of Gift applies from the date the valid challenge was submitted to the defender or if it should be extended because of the ensuing court case(s). Here we go again. We should make a drinking game out of this….but on second thought, that would be a really loooooong game.

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.

Justice Herman Cahn finally rolled out from behind his desk today and reconfirmed the November 27 decision that GGYC (BMW/Oracle) is the valid challenger for the Cup. The claim by Alinghi that the challenge should be null and void because it included the phrase “keel yacht” is out the window. Alinghi has already made it clear that they did not wish to take up GGYC’s offers for a conventional regatta so we’re going racing on 90 foot multihull monsters! I think I predicted this pretty early!

The date is a bit up for grabs now – GGYC is pushing for October because it doesn’t feel like the legal wrangling on behalf of SNG should be cause to delay the timing of the match from the submission of the original challenge. SNG is pushing for July 2009.

Right, wrong, or indifferent, one thing is for sure. This is going to be one of the most exciting (and potentially short) America’s Cup matches in all of the history of the world’s longest cup challenge.

Next up? Tons of scuttlebutt about what these boats might start to look like and more wrangling regarding the date of the match. Will they foil? Can a foiling boat go to weather efficiently? I know their either going to be cats or trimarans (everyone keeps saying cats but I’m thinking they may be trimarans for windward performance or some sort of hybrid between the two to stiffen up the centerline of the boat).

~insert evil multihull sailor laughter here~

Team New Zealand files suit with the US New York Court against Alinghi for a breach of contract for not organising an event in 2009 and a breach of trust endeavoring to organize a one-sided competition under the rules and regulations it originally announced. Team New Zealand is seeking damages in excess of US $12million. Finally! someone joins the fray…if their legal challenge succeeds, Alinghi could be removed as trustee of the cup…now THAT has never happened in AC history!

Check it out on SailingScuttlebutt.com and BYMNews