America's Cup Update - deep background

America's Cup

Info via SignOnSanDiego.com

The next America's Cup is still on hold, but there are stirrings below the surface.

While Larry Ellison's 90-foot trimaran continues to train off San Diego and BMW Oracle advances with its appeal in New York, both Ellison and Alinghi's Ernesto Bertarelli are lobbying for their versions of the same thing – a traditional event.

Bertarelli has been lobbying other challengers to encourage Ellison to drop his appeal. Recently, New Zealand dropped its legal action against Alinghi after the defenders threatened to not accept a Kiwi challenge to the next multinational America's Cup.

Ellison, meanwhile, wrote a letter to Bertarelli, again offering to drop his legal challenge if Bertarelli's Alinghi defense organization returned to the rules that governed the 32nd America's Cup defense.

All of which means the 33rd America's Cup is still in limbo.

The complete SignOnSanDiego.com post by Bill Center is here.

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Info via Wikipedia:

Main article: America's Cup (33rd edition)

The protocols for the 33rd America's Cup were released on July 5, 2007.

The Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC), on behalf of BMW Oracle Racing, lodged a complaint against the Société Nautique de Genève (SNG) in the New York Supreme Court pleading violations of the Deed of Gift. The deed specifies the New York Supreme Court is the arbiter of last resort in the event of a dispute. The suit alleged that the Spanish club, Club Náutico Español de Vela, did not meet the terms of the Deed of Gift as a legitimate yacht club that would qualify to be the Challenger of Record. This complaint was upheld by the court in late November 2007, confirming GGYC as the Challenger of Record and leading to the expectation of a "Deed of Gift Challenge."

SNG subsequently filed a motion to renew and reargue, and on 2008-03-17 Justice Cahn denied SNG's motion and entered a final order declaring CNEV’s challenge invalid and Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC) the Challenger of Record.

SNG appealed the final order to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, First Department in Manhattan, which on July 30, 2008 reversed the lower court ruling, stating in a 3-2 decision that the Deed of Gift provision at issue was ambiguous.

Wikipedia America's Cup info here.

Google News articles here.

Golden Gate Yacht Club background here.

Official America's Cup website here.

(Ed. note: Thanks to BE reader Kevin Carpenter for the above GGYC info. You may recall that BitterEnd published the first photo of BMW Oracle on the web when she came out of the shoot in Anacortes - that post is here.)