America's Cup- All teams recommended to suspend sailing

by Richard Gladwell on 17 May 2013
The America's Cup website has posted a note advising that:.

following the first meeting of the America’s Cup Review Committee on Thursday in San Francisco, teams have been asked to suspend all sailing in AC72 and AC45 catamarans until the middle of next week

The Review Committee is scheduled to meet with the teams for the first time on Friday morning.

The six person Review Committee was appointed last Tuesday to consider and recommend on all aspects of the 34th America's Cup.

It is expected to have a primary emphasis on safety issues, bot to prevent further incidents and reaction to an incident.

The normal process in such investigations is to ground the fleet initially, and then remove the suspension, once the cause of the incident is known, and the fix applied.

The reasons for the request are interesting, in that only Oracle Team USA are currently in a fit state to sail, given that Luna Rossa and Emirates Team NZ are still assembling their boats after being in transit from New Zealand. Luna Rossa may have gone sailing in the next week, but no real announcement had been made.

Emirates Team NZ were not due to sail until May 23, a day after the suspension request.

Artemis Racing were not scheduled to launch their AC72 until the end of May (prior to their fatal incident).

Several teams have AC45's in San Francisco, Oracle and Artemis have these set up for foiling, and it is most unclear as to why a suspension should have been placed on AC45 sailing when these have been used extensively through the America's Cup World Series, and also in San Francisco for selecting Youth Teams.

Now the most experienced teams have been asked not to sail them for a week, without public explanation.

Yesterday Artemis Racing announced that they held a private ceremony commemorating the memory of their friend and teammate Andrew 'Bart' Simpson. After eight bells, a wreath was cast upon the water by representatives of the four teams of the 34th America's Cup.

The statement from the Review Committee is a recommendation only, and has no binding authority on any of the teams, who must make their own decisions.