KEY POINTS:
It could have been a very different result if Alinghi had not won permission from an America's Cup measurer to send a man up the mast in the fourth race.
So say international yachting sources who watched the television footage that led to Team New Zealand's protest against Alinghi - dismissed yesterday by the race jury in a majority decision.
It's all part of the wonderful world of America's Cup yachting where the rules, complex and arcane, can be an integral part of the cup drama.
The key to the protest was Class Rule 31.6 which insists that mainsails be capable of being lowered to the deck without a man being sent aloft. This is a rule for safety reasons, so the crew member does not get battered and bruised while trying to help a sail down the mast.
But the key factor in the protest was the presence of Alinghi bowman Pete Van Niewenhuyzen up Alinghi's mast after the call was made for the measurers to check out the boats.
They were asked to demonstrate that they could comply with rule 31.6. Team NZ did so but Alinghi, when a measurer who'd boarded the boat asked for the same, requested that a man be sent up the mast to fix the halyard, an unrelated piece of kit which needed to be fixed to stop the descending mainsail from damaging other equipment.
Permission was given, the bowman fixed the halyard and held his arms out - presumably to show that he was not assisting with the mainsail lowering process. But then his foot appeared to touch the mainsail as he swung round the mast in the choppy seas.
Some have inferred that the bowman could have been up the mast on a pretext and just happened to touch the sail and aid the lowering process - a direct breach of the class rule - hotly denied by an angry Alinghi.
We will probably never know for sure but the sources said the measurer should not have given permission for the crew member to ascend the mast.
Giving Alinghi permission destroyed his ability to judge whether the class rule had been broken, said one. He should have denied that permission and checked it out first.
The permission meant the measurers could not effectively tell whether a breach had occurred. If they had done so, options facing Alinghi would have included the loss of the race or a re-sail.
Another source said it was unusual for a jury to be divided on such matters and such decisions were usually unanimous. It was pretty rare to get a divided jury; it did not happen often, he said. It suggested that not everyone was happy about things.
A third source said the problem was almost certainly that the evidence presented by Team New Zealand was in video form.
You can watch the TV and you can say it looked as though the Alinghi crew member was helping the sail down, he said. But the jury could not go solely on TV evidence.
It's like when you watch a rugby match and you see the video ref taking a look to see whether a try has been scored. At first, it looks like a try. But then you see it from a different angle and you're not so sure. The jury cannot take TV evidence as gospel.
One of the sources said: "The other thing you have to take into account is that the America's Cup is all about money. They usually take the soft option."
Although Team NZ's protest came to nothing, the measurers normally follow up protest proceedings with another check in the next race - but the crews know this and it would be a major surprise if mainsails and their descent method were not in tip-top operating condition.
