A
second attempt to have OWC disqualified (11/25/02) (sources
: LV
Cup&
NZ
Herald)
Last week, Dennis Conner's team was upset that
it was selected by OneWorld as its opponent in the repechage
and Ken Read said "these guys think we're the worst
of the group so let's go out there and prove them wrong.
Now, time is coming ...
One day after filing a joint submission (with Prada)
to the America’s Cup Arbitration Panel (ACAP) regarding
the OneWorld case, Stars & Stripes has now also
lodged a protest with the International Jury against
OneWorld.
Team Dennis Conner and Prada raised the stakes in the
Louis Vuitton Cup on Sunday with a joint application
to the America's Cup arbitration panel to have OneWorld's
challenge declared invalid.
On Monday evening, the ACAP stated that it may take
up to six weeks to convene before ruling on the new
allegations received Sunday. The move by Conner to take
the matter to the international jury is an attempt to
speed up proceedings.
The protest, to be heard by the International Jury claims
that OneWorld has breached Fundamental Rule 2 (Fair
Sailing) of the Racing Rules of Sailing, which reads,
in part, "A boat and her owner shall compete in
compliance with recognized principles of sportsmanship
and fair play. A boat may be penalized under this rule
only if it is clearly established that these principles
have been violated."
For its part, the International Jury has indicated it
will hold a hearing on Tuesday evening to decide on
the validity of Monday’s Protest, along with jurisdiction
issues.
Jury chairman Bryan Willis said last night it was not
clear if the jury had jurisdiction to hear the claims.
He said it was possible the jury could work with the
Panel on the case, by hearing the evidence but leaving
to the panel the final decision-making on whether the
cup's rules have been broken.
"There is a reason that books have been written about
the history of unsportsmanlike conduct in the America's
Cup," OneWorld have reacted angrily to Prada and Conner's
actions.. "The same characters and organisations continue
to reappear in the acts of skulduggery and underhandedness."
Because the jury is not expected to reach any final
decisions, the validity of this week's quarter-final
sail-offs has been cast into doubt.
Reeves-gate and the OneWorld challenge are back
in the spotlight after Team Dennis Conner and the Prada
Challenge have asked the America’s Cup Arbitration Panel
to take another look at the OneWorld case, alleging
“multiple contraventions of Article 15.3(c) of the Protocol.”
15.3 (c) of the America’s Cup Protocol concerns design
information, and specifically states that a Challenger
must engage independent designers, ‘having no involvement
with any other Challenger or Defence program.’
In the middle of August, the Arbitration Panel found
that OneWorld had breached the America’s Cup Protocol
based on submissions by the Seattle-based team. The
Panel found OneWorld, through its employees, did have
design information that originated with Team New Zealand,
America True and Prada from the 1999/2000 America’s
Cup.
But the Panel accepted OneWorld evidence that it had
not used that material for design purposes. The Panel
penalised OneWorld one-point to be deducted from its
score after the second Round Robin of the Louis Vuitton
Cup.
In the Application submitted on Sunday in Auckland,
Prada and Team Dennis Conner refer to the special status
of the Yacht Clubs they represent in seeking a further
determination of whether OneWorld has acted in accordance
with the rules.
"NYYC as longest standing trustee of the America’s
Cup, and YCPA as present Challenger of Record believe
that the conduct alleged is of such seriousness that
it must be thoroughly considered by the Panel. There
has been, and continues to be widespread public and
media speculation concerning the conduct by SYC/OWC
of its challenge, based in at least one respect on SYC/OWC’s
own document. It is in the interests of the event that
the truth of the allegations, which on the evidence
available to them the applicants believe have a proper
basis in fact, be determined."
Team Dennis Conner and Prada want the Arbitration Panel
to re-visit its earlier ruling – they say that OneWorld
wasn’t fully forthcoming when it asked the Arbitration
Panel to Rule on violations it admitted to ‘inadvertently
making’.
The two challengers claim that OneWorld was obligated,
but failed, to make a full disclosure of the design
information it had that had originated with other Syndicates.
(In the earlier Ruling, the Arbitration Panel made clear
that it wasn’t empowered to undertake a fact-finding
enquiry, and could only rely on submissions.)
To back up their claims, Prada and Team Dennis Conner
have included over 70-pages of evidence, consisting
of affidavits, and correspondence.
OneWorld executive director Bob Ratliffe on Sunday angrily
attacked the joint action.
"This is a desperate act, by desperate people who
want to fight this on shore instead of on the water,"
he said. "Our lawyers have reviewed the submission
and there’s nothing new in it, this information has
all been around for a long time, and if they wanted
to fight this, they should have done it before the September
30th deadline."
"We’ve dealt with this, we’ve been penalised, we’ve
taken the penalty and we’re ready to move on. That being
said, we welcome the opportunity for a hearing where
the burden of proof is on them, if it comes to that."
The Panel will now consider the validity of the Application
before deciding what further action, if any, to take.
OneWorld
only team to switch boats (11/22/02) (source
: NZ
Herald)
OneWorld are the only team to change boats for
the America's Cup challenger series quarter-final repechage.
At a skipper's press conference this morning, OneWorld's
Peter Gilmour said his team would be using USA-67, rather
than USA-65 - the boat they sailed to a 0-4 defeat in
the first stage of the quarterfinals against Oracle
BMW.
OneWorld started the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger series
with USA-67, but switched to USA-65 for their quarterfinal
series against Larry Ellison's San Francisco-based syndicate
Oracle BMW.
Despite deciding to change boats again, Gilmour said
OneWorld had been happy using USA-65 against Oracle.
"We led around a handful of marks, but that's not good
enough," he said. The team had spent time understanding
and coming to grips with the results in the races against
Oracle, and realised they needed to do a substantially
better job.
"I think you're going to see a very, very polished OneWorld
team out there," Gilmour said. "Changes had been
made to USA-67 and it was going extremely well".
A group of America’s Cup challengers has engaged
leading Auckland Queen’s counsel Jim Farmer to assist
in a potential legal attack on Seattle’s OneWorld Challenge.
The group believed to include Prada, OracleBMW Racing
and Team Dennis Conner, is now trying to work out whether
OneWorld might be guilty of more than the six breaches
of the America’s Cup protocol of which it was found
guilty in August.
The Independent understands rival challengers are concerned
the reputation of the America’s Cup is at issue if OneWorld
"cheated" to a greater extent than it has
acknowledged and gets away with it.
OneWorld
chooses Team Dennis Conner (11/19/02) (source
: Yachtracing.com)
Seattle's OneWorld Challenge stunned
most America's Cup observers by choosing Team Dennis
Conner's Stars & Stripes as its opponent in the repechage
round of the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger quarterfinals.
Earlier, Victory's Jesper Bank was asked whom he would
pick if he was OneWorld. Bank said, "We have talked
about that and, to be honest, we’ve seen quite a performance
increase in the Stars and Stripes campaign. I would
be a little worried picking Stars and Stripes".
OneWorld was knocked into the repechage by a 4-0 loss
to San Francisco's Oracle BMW but, as the highest ranking
loser in the upper bracket, had the privilege of picking
from among Team DC, Sweden's Victory or Italy's Prada.
"Each of these teams are extremely challenging competitors
who must be taken extremely seriously," OneWorld CEO
Gary Wright said. "We put it to the team, and at the
end of the day we determined that this was the right
decision for us today. We look forward to getting back
on the water doing what we came here to do."
"We’re looking forward to good racing with OneWorld,"
said Bill Trenkle, president of Team Dennis Conner and
the spinnaker trimmer on Stars & Stripes. "We’ve
only raced the Seattle boat twice and although we lost
those two races, Stars & Stripes has lifted its game
a lot since then."
With OneWorld's choice of Team Dennis Conner, the next
stage will include an all-American and an all-European
match.
Although they probably won't admit it, Stars & Stripes
and Prada have to be delighted over OneWorld's choice---especially
the Italians, who now draw the Swedes.
"We have sailed Prada and matched them well. We look
forward to meeting them in the Repechage", says Mats
Johansson, project leader and skipper for the Swedish
America's Cup challenger.
Certainly Prada Challenge won both matches against Victory
Challenge in the round robins. But behind the 2-0 standing
between Italy and Sweden are concealed two matches where
Victory Challenge dominated on most of the course.
"I believe that, from where we stand now in the competition,
every opponent is equally dangerous as they all represent
an obstacle in our progress to the finals", Francesco
de Angelis, skipper of Luna Rossa, said . "Sooner
or later we will have to face all of them".
"The Victory Challenge team has trained a lot here
in New Zealand, they are well prepared and have obtained
good results since Round Robin One".
The quarterfinals repechage race will determine who
will take the remaining two semifinal places and are
scheduled for November 23-30, and the semifinals will
begin on December 9.
The two quarter finals in the top half are finished.
Alinghi and Oracle are through to the semi-finals,
which start on 9 December. Prada and OneWorld go into
the repechage.
OneWorld, as the highest ranked loser in the repechages,
have 24 hours in which to pick its opponent after
the last quarterfinal match as been sailed. They
can choose from Prada, Victory Challenge and Stars
& Stripes (assuming that the latter two win their
quarter finals as expected).
The Seattle syndicate was 8-0 in the opening round
robin but has slid to a humbling 5-7 since the last
four a humiliating quarterfinals spanking by Oracle.
OneWorld's splat is exaggerated by the height from
which the team tumbled.
The expectation had been for a throat-throttling battle
between the two American syndicates but Spithill,
instead, had a frontrow seat as Oracle turned dictator.
"I can't make any excuses for what happened out there,
I just think Oracle did a great job" James Spithill
said. "It is such a strong team and it has such great
character. I am pretty confident we can get through."
The syndicate was holding a brainstorming session
last night ahead of its sudden-death repechage series
starting Saturday. In fact, the boat may be heart
of the problem.
Peter Gilmour and James Spithill occasionally were
out-smarted and out-started by the shockingly efficient
Dickson/Holmberg duo. But even when OneWorld guessed
right, or the wind blew its way, USA-65 slipped farther
off the performance map.
Would OneWorld's other yacht, USA 67, have possessed
enough speed to match USA 76 ? We'll never know, but
it was the 67 boat that Oracle ran away from late
in round robin two, winning handily in spite of a
penalty turn.
The Seattle group now faces a perilous path. Just
to stay alive and reach the Vuitton finals, it will
need consecutive series victories. One series slip
sends you home.
The Seattle team already has shown much of its hand
by using both boats and James Spithill was unsure
whether OneWorld would race USA 65, which it used
in the quarters, or reintroduce USA 67.
OneWorld never was out of reach of Oracle but if the
Seattle team is to survive on Hauraki Gulf, Laurie
Davidson and his design team will have to prove their
best tricks are ahead of them, not behind.
They will have to provide a little more of the one
thing their crew cannot : Boat speed.
