7.00pm
A letter from Team New Zealand suggesting the America's Cup rules might prevent challengers changing yachts between the semifinals and finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup was described today as "fun" by team boss Tom Schnackenberg.
Even with the challenger series at a crucial stage, the defenders were in the limelight
today, both as a result of the letter and because of speculation about what is under their boats.
Schnackenberg would not confirm widely reported claims Team New Zealand had developed a way to put a partial false hull appendage under their boat, but talked almost as if it were the case.
Earlier in the day, Alinghi skipper Russell Coutts confirmed the Swiss team had worked out how to do it and said the development was being tested and had potential.
Regarding the letter, Schnackenberg said the defenders had sent the letter yesterday after realising there was a conflict in the rules governing the challenger series.
The approach had been relatively informal, and the defenders were now waiting to hear back from the challengers on the issue, he said.
The matter needed to be resolved, and he thought that could be done fairly easily by changing one of the conflicting sets of rules.
"It is a bit of a mess when you do have a conflict (in the rules)," Schnackenberg said.
But he also said it would be pushing it too far for Team New Zealand to try to stop the Louis Vuitton Cup finalists from changing their boats if they wanted to.
"It's fun to pull their tails a little bit on this issue, but really the main thing is to resolve the issue and get it sorted out properly," Schnackenberg said.
Referring to the design of Team New Zealand's boats, he said that over the past week or so the rumours about the boats had grown.
He wanted to provide some perspective from Team New Zealand but still did not really want to talk about their boats.
"The unveiling date is January 7 and that's quite a party and we don't really want to spoil the surprise," he said.
"We hoped it would be a surprise when we unveiled our boat on that day."
Asked how other syndicates might have worked out what was under the defender's boats, he said he hoped it was by legitimate means.
"Just looking at us from just outside 200 metres when we're sailing, and using logic," Schnackenberg said.
"We try to keep everything we do a secret as much as possible, but if people see evidence to the extent they figure something out for themselves, that's okay."
Other teams could have also been alerted to the false hull idea through a confidential interpretation on the issue from the regatta measurers when the ruling became public at the beginning of September.
Such interpretations can be sought by syndicates, but Schnackenberg said it was not his team that had sought a ruling on the false hull issue.
"There was an interpretation, obviously requested by somebody, which could open up people's minds to this sort of idea," he said.
"We would've hoped that nobody would figure out our boats until after the cup.
"But the reality is that people may well have learned or deduced what we were doing a lot earlier. That's inevitable."
- NZPA
nzherald.co.nz/americascup
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7.00pm
A letter from Team New Zealand suggesting the America's Cup rules might prevent challengers changing yachts between the semifinals and finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup was described today as "fun" by team boss Tom Schnackenberg.
Even with the challenger series at a crucial stage, the defenders were in the limelight
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