BMW Oracle applauds America's Cup moves

8:17 PM Thu 13 Nov 2008 GMT

Golden Gate Yacht Club

It's unfortunate that we - and Mascalzone Latino - were excluded from the meeting hosted by Alinghi in Geneva on the yesterday to discuss proposed rules for AC33, but we are heartened by some positive things that came out of the meeting.

For example, we applaud their decision to have the America's Cup Race Officials, the Technical Director and Umpires be selected from ISAF officials. This is an excellent step in the right direction.

But a major sticking point remains the arbitration panel. Adding two members simply gives Alinghi a 3-2 advantage rather than their previous 2-1 advantage.
Standard operating procedure for selecting an arbitration panel is to have the Challengers pick two members, the Defender pick two, and those four individuals agree on a fifth member. That would be fair.

In addition, other fundamental fairness issues remain to be addressed, including the fact that the Defender, through ACM (the management company controlled by Ernesto Bertarelli), can change any of the rules at any time and can impose any new rule or restriction on the competitors.

Our position on AC33 remains clear: we will drop our lawsuit if Alinghi adopts fair and competitive rules.

Later today, Sail-World will publish an interview with Tom Ehman on these and other matters relating to the America's Cup settlement moves.

by Tom Ehman

Newsfeed supplied by

#News #Sailing

BMW Oracle applauds America's Cup moves

Sports/News

Weather Forecasts & Live Reports

Buy & Sell/Classifieds