Yachting: Coutts' team demand rule change

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

Now that Russell Coutts and his band of Swiss sailors have been accepted into the next America's Cup competition, they want the New York Supreme Court to rewrite the 143-year-old rules.

The Swiss Challenge want a change made to the Deed of Gift, which has governed the cup since 1857, so challenging yacht clubs not based on an arm of the sea avoid the rigmarole of validating their entry.

An arbitration panel yesterday ruled that Coutts' challenge, through the Societe Nautique de Geneve, was valid, even though the club sits on freshwater Lake Geneva.

Immediately, the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, holders of the cup, banked the Swiss' $US150,000 entry fee cheque.

But the Swiss will not let the issue float off with the tide.

The syndicate's lawyer, Aucklander Hamish Ross, said they wanted the problem "solved now and for all time."

The Swiss team want the clause removed from the Deed of Gift which deems that a syndicate must hold its annual regatta on an arm of the sea.

The clause was added by the New York Yacht Club in 1882 to stop the persistent Captain Alexander Cuthbert from entering the cup.

The Canadian, from Lake Ontario, challenged twice, but his boats were embarrassingly off the pace.

"It was a spite clause," Ross said. "And now it should be changed.

"There was a real risk that we could have taken our challenge somewhere bizarre like Monrovia or somewhere else in West Africa where they could sell us passports and we could sail under flags of convenience.

"Commonsense has to prevail."

Alterations to the wording of the historic Deed of Gift would have to be made in the New York Supreme Court, the state where it was originally drawn up.

The squadron agrees that the clause must be looked at for the sake of future cup regattas.

Commodore Peter Taylor said the squadron had sought clarification from the arbitration panel on the whole arm-of-the-sea issue, especially as it could apply to two other potential challengers for the 2003 cup.

"The Supreme Court is an option, but we may get an interpretation from the panel so we don't have to go that far," Taylor said.

The five-man international panel are yet to release the reasons behind their decision or answers to other questions raised.

While the squadron had been accused of deliberately stalling Coutts' new syndicate, Taylor said the yacht club was "absolutely delighted" that the Swiss were coming to Auckland.

"We want them in, we always have," he said. "We just wanted this sorted out so their challenge couldn't be upset by someone else later on. In the end I think they understood that."

Back on Lake Geneva last night, the Swiss were planning to celebrate their acceptance.

Ross said. "We can get on with the testing programme, and wives and families can make plans to move to Switzerland before the March 1 nationality deadline."

But the Swiss say they do not intend to give an undertaking to the squadron on where they would hold the cup if they won it, claiming the Deed of Gift does not demand a venue in advance.

Germany's first cup syndicate, the Illbruck Challenge, are waiting for confirmation of their entry, because it comes from the inland Dusseldorf Yacht Club. Taylor said there was speculation that the Swedish Victory Challenge, who have yet to submit an entry, could face a similar question over their arm-of-the-sea status.

Herald Online feature: America's Cup