Yachting-Live

The Endless Wrangling
The America’s Cup has been the theater of countless battles since 1851 and every single Defender’s mission has been to defend the “Auld Mug” with all his might against the repetitive assaults of various Challengers. On or off the water!

Over the past few months we have seen several of those legal ‘battles’ from both sides and as painful as it might be for the millions of America’s Cup’s fans, one should not blame the Defender for using every single tools the US legal system has on offer to protect the trophy in an all out war against BMWOracle.

Larry Ellison has previously seemed graceful in defeat. Indeed, the sailing world has come to accept and respect him as a true sportsman and a great yachtsman. Why is he then campaigning in a courtroom rather than on the water? Larry Ellison has legally eliminated the competition and won the right to be the sole challenger for this edition of the America’s Cup. One of the consequences of this action is that virtually thousands of people have been put out of their jobs. He might not mind them, but why does he now push for a match in 2008 when he knows that the Defender won’t be race ready?

To protect their rights as the Defender, Alinghi has fired another round of ammunition this week and successfully gained an expedited appeal. Justice Andrias from the Supreme Court of NY also decided that Alinghi’s request for a stay should be referred for consideration by a five-judge panel of the Appellate Division and the briefing on the stay motion will be completed by 25 April 2008, all briefing to be completed by 15 May 2008 and oral arguments will then be heard during the June term hopefully followed by a prompt decision.

With apparently no legal “tolling” in place, the dates of the match were originally set in GGYC’s challenge for July 4, 6 and if necessary July 8 2008. This is only just over a couple of months away and, at some point, there may be such short notice before July 4th that BMWO may not have enough time to get their boat to the site, get her measured and be ready to race. Maybe at that point, when they have their back against the wall, will BMWO come to the table to negotiate date, venue, boat’s certificate and race’s documentations?

Instead of going down that path, wouldn’t it be better to just get back to basics; a competition contested between true gentlemen who have allegiance to both their challenging club and their team? Otherwise the legal war will not end anytime soon as both teams have plenty of legal ammunition in stock.

It might be a good time to reflect on the words of the New York Court of Appeals ruling in Mercury Bay BC vs. San Diego YC twenty years ago: “This case has little or no significance for the law, but it has caught the public eye like few cases in this court’s history. Much of the reason for this attention, apparently, is the supposition that here at stake are grand principles - sportsmanship and tradition.” — Sebastien Destremau, www.adonnante.com

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This entry was posted on Sunday, April 20th, 2008 at 7:20 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.