Gladwell's Line- Alinghi goes fishing in the America's Cup

by Richard Gladwell on 4 May 2009
Sources close to the legal action over the 33rd America's Cup, confirmed today that Societe Nautique de Geneve had lodged papers with the New York Supreme Court, late last week, seeking to have the Challenger, Golden Gate Yacht Club disqualified.

The charge is that of not furnishing the Customs House Registry document (CHR) 'as soon as possible'.

The Challenger, as of 7 April 2009, has been sailing a 90ft long by 90ft trimaran for eight months, since early September 2008.

While SNG, as Defender, did not recognise Golden Gate Yacht Club as the Challenger until ordered to do so by the New York Appeal Court, SNG made rasping overtures about the provision of the Customs House Registry document, which is issued in the USA by the US Coast Guard.

Since GGYC was instated as the Challenger of Record on 7 April, those overtures have become rather more strident, culminating in the lodgement of the claim with the Supreme Court late last week.

While few would expect the Court to disqualify Golden Gate YC, the motion is believed to contain a secondary position requiring the Customs House Registry to be lodged within a prescribed time frame - and 30 days is suggested.

The move by SNG is a two pronged attack by the Defender. Firstly it will lock down the configuration options for the Challenger, which is now on its third set of sea trials.

Secondly it will require the disclosure of further hull measurement information about the Challenger.

One of the calculations in the CHR is the gross and nett tonnage of the vessel calculated according to standard shipping formula. (One of the purposes of the CHR, as well as being a formal registry of the vessel is to calculate its cargo carrying capacity).

It should therefore be possible for the great analytical minds, in the Alinghi team, of whom there are several, to be able to reverse engineer (back calculate) and deduce other information about the Challenger not contained in the Notice of Challenge submitted by GGYC, back in July 2007 - 22 months ago.

Part of the registration process is that the vessel is allocated a registry number, which is permanently fixed into the vessel. For a monohull this is not such an issue, as the vessel only has one hull, and while that may be altered, it would not be replaced.

However for a multihull, the vessel has three hulls, which are joined by beams, and in multihull sailor parlance, are referred to as 'the platform'. The reason being that any part of 'the platform' can be removed and substituted with another part.

While it may seem a little far fetched to believe that the main hull of BOR90 (and the BMW Oracle Racing multihull is known) could be replaced, it is not impossible. And, certainly the outer hulls could be replaced if they suffered some form of structural failure/decay. Or, the BMW Oracle Racing team found, from the experience gained during the sea trials that it was better to substantially alter, or substitute the 'platform', and just move the rig across onto the new platform and effectively have a newer and faster boat. And one based on sea trial experience and data, not calculations by designers, with no previous experience in this size of inshore racing multihull.

Of course, once the CHR document had been filed with the Defender, this 'add and subtract' option would be locked off and BMW Oracle Racing's options for change would be substantially reduced.

With the CHR in hand, SNG would also have the additional gain of being able to further evaluate the performance of BOR90, and use derived data to estimate her performance through computer simulation and 'virtual racing' to improve their own design.

Alinghi have had crew on the water at San Diego observing some of the BOR90 trialling as a physical observation of performance to complement the computer data analysis.

Sail-World has located online copies of the www.uscg.mil/HQ/msc/docs/CG-5397.pdf!Simplified_Measurement_Application form. It is not clear whether this form would be used for BOR90, as it is stated for use by vessels 79ft or less. However the data is similar to that provided for Sir Michael Fay's 'Big Boat' KZ-1.

Part of the form is designed for use by trimarans, and if there is 'no buoyant volume in the structure that connects the hulls together', the individual hull lengths, beams and depths must also be provided. This is substantially more data than contained in the Notice of Challenge.

It is also worth noting that while SNG have been very keen to see the Customs House Registry of BOR90 since September 2008, and with the 33rd Match still between nine and 12 months away, Sir Michael Fay did not forward the CHR for his 'Big Boat' until just three months before the 27th America's Cup against Dennis Conner and San Diego Yacht Club.

In short, this exercise is a fishing expedition by Societe Nautique de Geneve - designed to either pick up additional data on BOR90, or restrict the configuration/build options for BMW Oracle Racing, over the next nine to 12 months. Their only downside is that their lawyers will get a short shrift from the NY Supreme Court, and there is plenty of upside in terms of gaining additional hull data, or restricting BMW Oracle Racing's development options.

Of course, under the Deed of Gift for the America's Cup, the Defender does not have to provide the Challenger with their CHR, and in fact does not have to name their vessel until the day of the first race.

It is not known whether the Supreme Court will hear SNG's motion on 14 May, the date set for the Contempt of Court Hearing, or whether a separate date will be set.

A statement on this issue has now been posted by Golden Gate Yacht Club:

Valencia, Spain, 4 May 2009 -- Having failed in its two year battle to remove Golden Gate Yacht Club as the rightful Challenger of Record, Société Nautique de Genève/Alinghi is making yet another groundless attempt to avoid the court's final judgment and further delay the America's Cup. We fully expect that the court will promptly resolve the custom house registry issue, as GGYC is in complete compliance with the Deed of Gift.