Russell Coutts' Swiss yachting syndicate has been fined $US3000 ($7500) for breaking America's Cup rules.
The America's Cup Arbitration Panel fined the Swiss and added $US1000 as costs after they altered their yacht without permission.
The syndicate representing the Societe Nautique de Geneve modified the hull of their training yacht this year, but did not inform the regatta's technical director.
Approval is supposed to be sought to prevent syndicates breaching rules which regulate the extent of alterations to old America's Cup-class yachts.
Coutts, who last year controversially left Team New Zealand just two months after he led their defence of the America's Cup in Auckland, now heads the Swiss challenge.
The Swiss are sailing the boat of the Fast 2000 syndicate from the last cup, Be Happy, also from Switzerland. Be Happy was double-keeled.
Coutts' syndicate has changed that to a single keel - a modification which did not require approval.
But alterations to the bow and the stern of the boat should have been cleared by the technical director.
The five-member arbitration panel says in a written ruling that the breach of the rules was inadvertent, and the Swiss had voluntarily brought the issue to its notice.
Other syndicates were not disadvantaged, the panel said.
The holder of the cup, the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, asked the panel to rule if the Swiss boat was considered a "new" boat for the next campaign. The panel said it was not.
Under cup racing rules, each syndicate is allowed just two new boats at each America's Cup campaign.
- NZPA
Herald Online feature: America's Cup
Team NZ: who's in, who's out
Coutts' syndicate hit for modifying training boat
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.