In a "going public with the Confidentials", Ken McAlpine published this morning 13 "Confidentials Interpretations".

To be in full compliance with Version 5 of the America’s Cup Class Rule, teams may ask the Measurement Committee for interpretations of the Class Rule to validate their design innovations.

Generally, all questions result in "public interpretations" (which become public as soon the Measurement Committee issue them), unless the nature of question is such that by making it public a secret would be revealed.

In this particular case, the ACC Rule allows teams to seek and receive "Confidential Interpretations" from the Measurement Committee, but only through March 31 of this year. Thereafter teams can only seek "Public Interpretations".

The Class Rule also provides that any "Confidential Interpretations" that were issued individually to teams must be made public by the Technical Director not later that 1 May 2006.

It was the same in the previous versions of the ACC Rule. In the past, however, CI's only became public just before the start of the LVC.

"In 2003 when the Defender and Challenger of Record wrote Version 5 of the Class Rule, we agreed it would level the playing field for all concerned, especially newer teams, if the CIs became public much earlier -- hence the new rule requiring issuance of them today, fully 11 months before the start of the LVC", explained BMW Oracle Racing's Tom Ehman.

Accordingly, this morning ACC Technical Director Ken McAlpine circulated to the teams the 13 "Confidentials" previously issued (see the "Measurement Committee Notice" Links on the right side of this page).