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AC Dispute |
(21.08.2007) - * The America's Cup was a joke almost 20 years ago when a 60-foot American catamaran clobbered a lumbering, 135-foot monohull from New Zealand. But the scam the Swiss defender is trying to pull for 2009 is even more laughable. Only days before the Swiss team, Alinghi, successfully defended the cup at Valencia, Spain, a Spanish group incorporated a new yacht club, Club Nautico
Espanol de Vela. It was created as a subterfuge to give Alinghi's billionaire owner, Ernesto Bertarelli, total control over both the challenger and defender sides of the next America's Cup. Not so coincidentally, Bertarelli let Valencia keep the event -- and the money it brings -- in 2009.
The 1887 Deed of Gift that governs America's Cup competition says a challenger must be an established yacht club that holds an annual regatta on an arm of the sea. The new Spanish club, with the dye still wet on its
burgee, did hold its first regatta last month -- in Optimist prams. This ersatz challenger-of-record counts as an America's Cup qualifier, a race in which 30 children sailed cat-rigged mini-boats 7 feet, 7 inches long. Truthfully, I was delighted to see the pram event. It reinforces American billionaire Larry Ellison's argument that the Spanish challenge is invalid and provides more ammunition for legal arguments that Bertarelli's plan is a sham and violates every provision of the Deed of Gift. -- Read on:
http://tinyurl.com/yvgsaw
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Marv Novak, Seabrook/TX (US) (E-mail)
2007-08-21 16:11:30 UTC
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