Yachting: Off-the-water skills just as important as races

By Bill Koch

As an America's Cup veteran, I realise that winning the "Auld Mug" requires as much skill negotiating the back rooms of yacht clubs as it does the windshifts on the race course.

So I couldn't help smile when I heard Peter Blake tell ESPN in 1995 that if New Zealand won the America's Cup, he intended to clean up the rules.

Good for him, I thought. It was about time the windows were opened and the light shined on how the rules of the game are decided.

"We're going to make sure the rules are fair for both sides," Blake told the sports network. "If there is a disadvantage and it is slightly on the defence side of things, so be it."

But have Blake and company made the America's Cup fairer? It depends on who is defining fairness: the challengers or Blake.

When asked if Blake had made the playing field level, Dennis Conner, leader of Stars and Stripes, quipped: "Maybe he spends a lot of time in the Alps and he thinks the Alps are level."

To be fair, the real problem is not Blake or Team New Zealand, but a nettlesome little document called The Protocol, the legal document governing the America's Cup.

Unlike most legal parchment, which sets things down in black and white, The Protocol always changes. We can thank the New York Yacht Club for that, because it allowed the winners of the Cup, through proxy, to determine the rules.

Team New Zealand executive director Alan Sefton admitted there were problems with staging an America's Cup, but defended his team's performance to date.

"What we found in New Zealand is that Kiwis fall over backwards to be scrupulously fair," he said.

"We work here with the Challengers of Record to improve the event. First is The Protocol, which we borrowed quite a lot from the San Diego protocol. We took from the mix anything found inequitable. It is not yet close to perfect but heading in the right direction."

On the surface, TNZ has made the rules about measurements, sea conditions, national eligibility, reconnaissance, yacht modifications and weather conformance the same for both challenger and defender.

They have also made two significant changes: a covenant not to sue over any disagreement and an arbitration panel to resolve disputes.

But, like all legal documents, it's the fine print that counts.

The five-member arbitration panel is a good example. Team New Zealand select two members who "have a significant interest in the dispute''. Two other members are selected by the New York Yacht Club, the Challenger of Record. The fifth arbitrator is picked together. TNZ has two votes. But Prada has no choice in the selection. The advantage goes to New Zealand.

Another subtle change requires Prada to declare and unveil the yacht it will use in the Cup on January 15, before the end of the Louis Vuitton challenger series. Once unveiled, Prada can no make no alterations.

Team New Zealand, on the other hand, unveiled two of its boats, but selected NZL 60 a week before the race. They gained 30 days to test which boat would be most competitive with Prada.

Ironically, Blake complained when this happened to him in San Diego, arguing that Stars and Stripes had been given an unfair advantage.

Cup protocol requires that the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, the host club, pick a new race committee for the finals. And TNZ has left the wind conditions solely up to the discretion of the committee.

Some challengers, such as Conner, questioned whether Harold Bennett, the committee head, can be objective since he taught many of the Kiwis how to sail. He believes the committee will hold off in light air, giving TNZ an advantage.

"Don't count on many races starting between 12 or 13 true," he said, referring to the wind speed. "The wind will be very flaky out there and when Russell [Coutts] sails by the race committee boat with his thumbs up and it's more than 35 true, the race is gonna go off."

Blake and company have also managed to reserve the right to select one of three general areas for the race course two and half hours before the start. Obviously, TNZ can select a course that has wind favourable to their boat. The advantage is clearly to TNZ.

Pushing the rules to favour the defender comes as little surprise to America's Cup veterans.

Halsey Hereshoff, veteran of four America's Cup campaigns and head of the America's Cup Hall of Fame, said it was all part of the contest.

"We did it in Newport. They will here," he said of the Kiwis.

Indeed, abuse and bending of the rules is part of the fabric of the America's Cup. The New York Yacht Club raised it to an art form, managing to bend the rules enough to keep the Cup for 132 years.

Do I think it's fair? No. But I realise it is part of the spoils that come with winning the Cup. The control of the event is as attractive to the challengers as the glory of winning.