Valencia, August 3rd, 2007

From Mascalzone Latino
Thoughts on Americas Cup XXXIII and our proposal
 

On the sport side all wish and expect to be part of an event in which winning has a lot of value through strong, tough but ultimately fair-play-based competition.

On a commercial side we all expect and wish to have a credible and sellable event in which the sponsor would have their visibility and good chances to have their teams successfully compete.

Both the prospective and the current AC 33 Challengers need to look for sponsors. To our knowledge few, if any, of the challengers recently accepted by SNG do not have yet even the start up funds.

The Class Rule of the next event and the unilaterally-appointed race management and dispute resolution provisions are the critical points of objection to the current Protocol, which has already received a lot of criticism since its publication.

We believe that an Americas Cup in which the Challengers would know from the Defender (without previous Challenger involvement) the new class rules only 18 months before the event would not be a competitive regatta, nor would be credible or sellable. We should count at minimum 8-9 months of design work, 8-9 months, if not more, in case of two yachts, for the construction. Challengers would not even have enough time to test the new yachts on-the-water. When the new class of yacht was created in 1988, all competitors had more than 3 years to prepare.

We understand Alinghi’s wish to play its role as the Defender, and its desire of evolving the event with a new class of yachts.

We understand Oracles position that ultimately it is playing the role of a Challenger, and wishes to make the game more accessible and equitable for the challengers.

In the existing conflicting positions between SNG/Alinghi and GGYC/Oracle, all other teams should try to contribute in resolving this impasse.

We therefore urge SNG/Alinghi to reopen the discussion on the AC XXXIII Protocol on the following basis, provided that AC 33 will be in Valencia in 2009, May-July as announced:

• Use V5 Americas Cup yachts, with each team permitted to build one new yacht and modify one old yacht up to 50%.

• All AC 33 competitors agree, by entering AC 32, that in case of winning AC 33 they will use the new Alinghi 90' design in AC 34, with the final rule to be worked out between Alinghi and the CC (which would of course include the current COR) in the meantime, and starting now.

• The Protocol be substantially the same as AC 32, but with changes to be negotiated by SNG/Alinghi with the Challenger Commission. The revision of the Protocol should particularly solve the area of most concern of the recent adopted Protocol: SNGs unilateral ability, through ACM, to disqualify a challenging team, in particular for disputing any provision in the Protocol; ACMs ability to accept not all otherwise valid challengers, ACMs ability to unilaterally reject a challenging team; appointment of the arbitration panel and jury by the Defender and COR only and their ability to dismiss the members of the panel and jury at will; ACMs exclusive power to appoint race committee, measurement committee, umpires and any other event officials; ACMs powers and rights which far exceed the position of any Defender in the past, including the power to impose a penalty to competitors; ACMs power to unilaterally establish the rules for the all the events, including the Challenger Selection Series, the lack of any accountability by either ACM or COR to the challengers and the absence of any requirement of neutral management, the participation of the Defender in the CSS.

The execution of a revised Protocol with these provisions should then convince GGYC to withdraw the Court actions, and it would attract more sponsors and, therefore, more teams to the event.

Vincenzo Onorato
Mascalzone Latino

August 3rd, 2007