Slightly Different Proof of Concept?

When the powers that be (meaning, essentially, Larry Ellison and Russell Coutts) burrowed into the matter of how to build a structure around the 2013 America’s Cup in the hope of insulating it from past craziness and creating stability going forwardand with that, marketability—the first essential that came to mind was independent management.

And then:

One subtext of the recent International Jury ruling permitting Emirates Team New Zealand’s extra-large foils over the objections of the defender and the challenger of record is this: It was a thoroughly independent ruling.

Proof of concept? The International Jury is, I believe, one step more independent than America’s Cup Race Management, as run by CEO Iain Murray. ACRM filed documents in support of the Jury’s decision over that of the Measurement Committee, which wanted to disallow ETNZ’s foils because it is undoubted that, in the drafting of the rule, the intent was to measure in one condition, not two. But, there’s a hole in the wording of the rule.

(I’ve also heard a rumor that certain rules-eagles in Middletown had shared a warning to that effect.)

ACRM, funded by Ellison, but buffered from meddling, sided with the Jury and ETNZ and filed documents pegging the problem as “inconsistencies in the drafting of the Class Rule.” ACRM noted that “Innovation of one competitor is rule breaking to another.”

From time to time I get hit by people asserting that what is going on in building AC34 is no different from what Ernesto Bertarelli’s legal councilors had, unfortunately, convinced him should be his route following AC32, Valencia 2007.

The answer is no. The evidence is in.