America's Cup filter

There’s a private grade school a few blocks from my house where the tuition for kindergarten is $18,000. I am sure it is a great school, but I always thought that the fee was pretty high, and was intended more so to keep some people out than to cover the costs of teaching their kids. Call it a filter.

The America’s Cup has a filter too, as it should. I mean, who wants a bunch of marketing people with business cards and a box of stationary pretending to be actual teams. It takes a lot to be a team, and while money is a primary requirement, the type of people involved is vital. The America’s Cup is not just a means to earn a living, or to market a product. The America’s Cup is a regatta of the highest order, and only teams ready to play at this level should apply.

The challenging club requirements has been the focus of the legal dispute between defending team Alinghi and American team BMW Oracle Racing. Per the entry form, a club must supply:

1. An original notarized certified copy of the Yacht Club's certificate of incorporation
2. An original notarized certified copy of the Yacht Club's trade register extract
3. A Notice of Race (NOR) of the Yacht Club's annual regatta
4. The By-Laws of the yacht club
5. The organisation rules of the Yacht Club

It was Item #3 that caught our attention, so Scuttlebutt asked Ana Gil-Robles, legal counsel for the event, about this issue. Knowing that Alinghi’s Challenger of Record Club Nautico Español de Vela (CNEV) had not hosted an event prior to their entry, we wondered if this applied to others. To this, Ana instructed, “Please send us the Notice of Race of annual regatta of the yacht club in accordance with the Deed of Gift and the Protocol for the 33rd America's Cup.”

The only problem is that some people think the Deed of Gift means that you need to have hosted an annual regatta before submitting entry, and others - like the Alinghi team - do not read it that way. As for the Protocol for the 33rd America's Cup, it is not available for viewing, with Alinghi stating that the revised version will be published later this week. With such helpful legal counsel, is it any wonder that the America’s Cup is in such a mess?

* The entry deadline for the 33rd America’s Cup was December 15th, with the Alinghi team planning to announce the entry list later this week after the necessary validation process. Of course, if the New York Court of Appeals finds in favor of BMW Oracle Racing in their litigation against Alinghi, the event for which the teams have entered will be cancelled.