America's Cup - 10 days to go!

(from now on, I'm just going to say BMWO and Alinghi instead of mentioning their respective yacht clubs, GGYC and SNG).

Time for another brief on the America's Cup. Much has happened since our last discussion - the biggest sticky point recently has been accusations from BMWO that Alinghi are using sails that were not constructed in Switzerland. These accusations have been ‘mumbled’ by BMWO for over a year now but they never brought it to a point. They did about three weeks ago and the teams met in Singapore to try and negotiate on several points. Many items of contention and questionable legality exist in the NOR and Sailing Instructions that have been recently published in draft form by Alinghi. Including, a wind limit of 15knots measured at 60 meters above the water, the wave limit of 1 meter (39 inches), trying to require BMWO to moore their boat inside the Valencia inner harbor (where there is not enough room for them to safely maneuver with the wing up), the effective reinsertion of rule 53 (which the courts permitted Alinghi to exclude) which means that BMWO’s newly fitted skin friction reduction system may no longer be permitted (yes, they may be ejecting a substance or fine bubbles into the water to help the hulls slip through the water more easily), among other things.

Alinghi’s sail problem is this: The Deed of Gift says

Alinghi’s sail panels are North Sails 3DL panels and the only place in the world to have them made is in the North facility in Minden, Nevada, USA where they have a custom pneumatically controlled mold where they lay out the mylar panels, lay in the reinforcement scrim in load paths, vacuum bag, and cook/cure the laminated panel together as per the customer’s design specifications. The Alinghi mainsails are seamed from two each of these custom molded panels and their genoas are made from 3 to 5 of these panels. Alinghi seamed these panels and added the corner fittings in Switzerland. Their first reaction to BMWO’s complaint was that their sails are made in Switzerland…so hush (I paraphrase). When pressed with evidence, their response was that “sails aren’t really part of the ‘yacht’ so they’re exempt from the phrase in the deed”. When pressed with the legal affidavit filed by their own team from their lead designer from the last round in the court where he said “a yacht constitutes all the parts needed to sail it including rudders and sails” (I paraphrase closely – out of time to look up the exact wording but this is extremely close), Alinghi agreed to sit and discuss it in Singapore.

With the deadline looming for BMWO to file suit against Alinghi’s sails and be heard in time before the match is to begin on Feb. 8th, they sat down in Singapore. Both sides blame the other for the implosion of the discussions and with the NDA required by Alinghi, it will be some time before we ever know exactly what happened there. What we do know is that 8 drafts of an agreement were written up by the Alinghi team. BMWO and a representative from US Sailing signed (what we believe to be) the last revision but after a call from Singapore to the Alinghi leadership, Alinghi refused to sign. Alinghi claims that it was because BMWO initiated their suit against their sails in New York. BMWO says we told them we would initiate the suit on Tuesday if an agreement wasn’t in place and it was already Wednesday. Sooooo…nothing came out of the discussions in Singapore.

The legal documents were filed by BMWO which (in my opinion) made a pretty good case that seaming custom fit panels and sewing on eyes to their corners doesn’t constitute “manufactured” when the panel was custom molded from scratch elsewhere. They also presented a good bit of America’s cup history where the origin of the sails – sometimes even the raw materials that went into them – was a big point of contention. Alinghi’s rebuttle documentation went all over the place and did little to address BMWO’s suit. They basically implied that if the court is to rule on the CiC (Constructed in Country) status of Alinghi’s sails, they should look at BMWO’s hydraulics (a club member saw a box at an Italian hydraulic manufacturer warehouse headed for BMWO), and the BMWO engine. They also argued that the case shouldn’t be heard until after a race happens. Their tactic seemed to be more of one to daze and confuse – but this is Alinghi’s newly hired law firm (their 3rd now). BMWO’s final filling blew me away – it was concise, to the point, and really seemed to drill home that yes, sails are part of a “yacht”, yes they need to be CiC, and they proceeded to shoot down Alinghi’s counter claims against their own boat going so far as to show several examples where they went to great length to ensure that their boat conformed (the Italian hydraulics were used initially but they had contracted with the American arm of the same company to have the hydraulic system remanufactured in the US once it was debugged and proven out…all the Italian components were replaced). Coutts has actually said in some interviews that even the oil from which the carbon fibers were derived came from US soil.

The commodore of SNG (Alinghi’s club) Fred, stated that if “BMWO was successful in DSQ’ing their yacht in the courts, there would be no match”. Many were on pins and needles wondering if this thing would actually happen…and we began wondering what the fallout would be after all this money has been spent if they pulled the plug in such a manner. (note, however, BMWO wasn’t trying to DSQ Alinghi – they were just trying to prevent them from using US constructed sails….on multiple occasions they offered Alinghi time to build sails that conform to the CiC clause in the Deed).

Meanwhile, in Valencia Spain, the teams have been getting some practice in. The America’s Cup Race Committee set a test course yesterday so they could get some practice as well – and they offered it up to the two teams to get some practice as well. With 7 knots of wind (and the water barely disturbed) USA-17 (BMWO) approached the start line with the wing dialed in, and flying two hulls. At some point, we have a report of USA-17 being measured making 28 knots in these conditions. A “bang” was heard by the observers at the race committee and USA-17 returned to base to repair a reportedly minor failure with some of the flap rigging on the wing. They repaired their boat this afternoon and went out for a test sail at around 4pm. Alinghi also performed some test sailing yesterday and were out a day break this morning to do more testing.

This afternoon, after the courts had an opportunity to read the fillings, a conference call was had between the judge and representatives of both teams. We don’t yet know details, but the court case will not be heard until March. The court says “go race first and then we’ll sort it out”. So it’s game on now. 10 days and counting.

There will be internet coverage from various sources (possibly even an online site of ESPN). Sailing Anarchy says they’ll have an announcement on Monday about something they are working on as well. Racing will start at around 4:30am Eastern Standard time…I’ll be at my computer on Monday Feb. 8th at that time – will you?