America's Cup Shambles...latest

flaming said:
I'm no fan of Ellison, but I don't see him as the arch villan in all of this.

Ernesto won the last cup, and immidiately organised a challenge by a sham yacht club so that he had control over the challenger of reccord. He then released the rules for the next cup, which were very obviously biased in the defender's favour. Chiefly the bizare rule that the challenger series would be run in the existing boats but the cup itself would happen in a new type of boat. Meaning massive costs for the challengers who would have to develop two types of boat, whilst the defender could use all its resources on one boat.
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I disagree that they were obviously biased in the defender's favour. I think Ernesto's vision for the cup, the changes to the challenger format. the more frequent competitions and in particular the changes to the rules for the boat, are in the best interest of the cup. You could question the transition arrangements but the result would have been an improvement, and we would probably already have had the 33rd Cup (IIRC).

I think it was somewhat fairer to the other competitors to be at least allowed to compete for the cup - what Ellison has actually done by his legal arguments is not really to disadvantage Alinghi but to exclude all other teams from the Cup.

What you have now is that the other teams are still sailing the LV Cup in the old style boats but are denied the chance even to compete for the AmCup.

It is very hard to see how Elision's legal action has been in the interest of anyone other than Elision himself and I don't recall anyone else in the sailing world giving him any support (at least recently).
 
Isn't this all just part of the long, dishonourable history of the AC? I seem to remember during the years of American dominance, the NY courts being involved frequently. It's always been the case that the defender tries to stack all the odds in its favour, and not just those deriving from wind and water. Unsurprisingly, the challengers, at least those with sufficiently deep pockets, have challenged the 'rules' with the expensive help of the NY Bar.
 
bedouin said:
I disagree that they were obviously biased in the defender's favour. I think Ernesto's vision for the cup, the changes to the challenger format. the more frequent competitions and in particular the changes to the rules for the boat, are in the best interest of the cup. You could question the transition arrangements but the result would have been an improvement, and we would probably already have had the 33rd Cup (IIRC).

I think it was somewhat fairer to the other competitors to be at least allowed to compete for the cup - what Ellison has actually done by his legal arguments is not really to disadvantage Alinghi but to exclude all other teams from the Cup.

What you have now is that the other teams are still sailing the LV Cup in the old style boats but are denied the chance even to compete for the AmCup.

It is very hard to see how Elision's legal action has been in the interest of anyone other than Elision himself and I don't recall anyone else in the sailing world giving him any support (at least recently).
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Like I said, I'm no big fan of Ellison. And some of what he has done was either badly thought out, or has backfired spectaculary. Namely the challenge in multis.

But for me the real blame does lie with Ernesto. Once his sham challenger was deemed ineligable and BMW Oracle were appointed challenger of record he has refused all attempts to negotiate a multi challenger event.

That's not to say that the boats suggested weren't great, but remember that many challengers signed a letter to Ernesto before the legal stuff commenced.
 
bedouin said:
I presume that that must have been with the agreement of the parties - the DoG is pretty explicit and the court does not have the power to overrule that.
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I don't actually know the details. But that was the outcome that I recall.
 
flaming said:
Like I said, I'm no big fan of Ellison. And some of what he has done was either badly thought out, or has backfired spectaculary. Namely the challenge in multis.
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Err, exactly how has it backfired for Ellison?

He was unable to compete with the other challengers on the water so by taking legal action he has got himself into a situation to be able to challenge for the AmCup itself without the minor detail of having to beat 8-10 other teams first.

The multi-hull challenge is certainly no disadvantage to him - he has repeatedly shown himself unable to compete in mono-hulls so the change can only be an advantage

Lets not forget the outcome of the last Cup

Ellision was beaten 5/1 by luna rossa in the semis
Luna Rossa were beaten 5/0 by NZ in the final
NZ was beaten 5/2 by Alinghi

The can be no doubt that Ellison's chance of winning the 33rd AmCup is much greater than it would have been had he been forced to go through the challengers and then compete in monohulls.

I think he would regard that as a positive result.
 
Twister_Ken said:
Isn't this all just part of the long, dishonourable history of the AC? I seem to remember during the years of American dominance, the NY courts being involved frequently. It's always been the case that the defender tries to stack all the odds in its favour, and not just those deriving from wind and water.
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Indeed. In the Lipton years, for example - and presumably for some time after? - the rules said that the competing yachts had to sail to the course from their base. Since the course was in Long Island Sound, the yanks could put forward a flimsy out-and-out racer while the brits had to build something which could cross the Atlantic.

Like F1, the whole thing is a ludicrous and corrupt game for millionaires with big egos. Let them play. It has nothing to do with sailing.
 
flaming said:
Like I said, I'm no big fan of Ellison. And some of what he has done was either badly thought out, or has backfired spectaculary. Namely the challenge in multis.

But for me the real blame does lie with Ernesto. Once his sham challenger was deemed ineligable and BMW Oracle were appointed challenger of record he has refused all attempts to negotiate a multi challenger event.

That's not to say that the boats suggested weren't great, but remember that many challengers signed a letter to Ernesto before the legal stuff commenced.
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He didn't challenge in Multihulls. the deed states that if mutual consent is lacking, the challenger can force a race in a boat of upto 90 foot by 90 foot
 
st599 said:
He didn't challenge in Multihulls. the deed states that if mutual consent is lacking, the challenger can force a race in a boat of upto 90 foot by 90 foot
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It really beats me why people spend mountains of cash on these boats and then do scaled up versions of Optimist round-the-reservoir racing. When I'm in charge, the Americas Cup will be a race round eight turning points chosen completely at random in the North and South Atlantic ten minutes before the race starts.
 
orbister said:
It really beats me why people spend mountains of cash on these boats and then do scaled up versions of Optimist round-the-reservoir racing. When I'm in charge, the Americas Cup will be a race round eight turning points chosen completely at random in the North and South Atlantic ten minutes before the race starts.
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Come the revolution brother!

At least this embarassing situation at the "pinnacle of sailing", is not as noticeable to the general public as the F1 debacles, or dare I say it; the state of Premier League football clubs due to their expenditure.
 
saltwater_gypsy said:
Post Number19 by "FLAMING" is one of the clearest summaries I've read.
It just shows that Larry and Ernesto are involved in a highly expensive p***ing contest while the rest of the yachting world gets on with proper racing in proper America's type yachts. Maybe they haven't actually noticed!!!
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There seems to be a definite revival in the J-class, though it will be interesting to see how many of the announced new builds (five?) actually see it to the water, what with the recession. So the short term answer is easy - make it a J-class competition again!
 
Wouldn't the perfect outcome be for "Larry and Ernesto" to go head-to-head in off-the-shelf Optimist dinghies around the Isle of Wight? A return to the roots, a fair race, and a real challenge.
 
Ellison now has a certain RC who gave the cup to Ernesto to for this

I think Ellison has him and so far he has won all the challenges in court, and when he lost he challenged again and won it the second time around
this makes it 9 - 0 court win for Oracle, is no joke
Alinghi wants to make the AC a circus similar to F1 but with everything in his hands
its like having Ecclestone owning McLaren or Ferrari, does it lead somewer

we have to thank Larry for keeping the cup alive, now seeing how he lost in 2007 and 2003 does not matter, as that this history
and even if Alinghi wins next February it will still have to obey the rules
the fact that Louis Vuitton left the challenger series was already a big sign, and the fact that it did a similar challenger series just few months after it left was a bigger sign, that something about the way Mr. Bertarelli is moving things is not rite
 
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