"The first person to commend the Safety Recommendations was Grant Dalton, CEO of ETNZ. He publicly congratulated Murray for his work and said “you won’t get any push back from ETNZ on this.
Paul Cayard has simply repeated (almost verbatim) what Iain Murray said in his earlier attack on ETNZ.
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The inclusion of these rules excludes no one. Yet, excluding these rules, and keeping the other 35, will exclude Artemis Racing. The fact is that if ETNZ and LR get what they want, Artemis Racing will be excluded from competition." I'd like to see some justification of that statement. Is Paul Cayard stating that his team is incapable of building a boat within the class rules? How exactly does not allowing rudder elevators that extend outside the hulls and not allowing rudder rake changes on the water exclude Team Artemis from the America's Cup?
Th
e fact of the matter is that the America's Cup Class Rules represent a contract between all the competitors. There is a proper procedure for changing the class rules, and (just like amending a contract) it requires unanimous consent. When Iain Murray made his safety recommendations, they included changes to the class rules, but he could not get unanimous agreement on all points from the teams. Instead of proceeding with the 35 points that were acceptable to everyone, Murray tried to force his way on the dissenting teams by including all 37 of his proposals in the safety plan attached to the USCG permit application. ALL the subsequent consternation is a direct result of that action. Don't blame ETNZ and Luna Rossa for standing up for their rights under the rules (i.e. protesting) - blame the man who tried to subvert them.
If you listen to the IM presser he explains what happened quite clearly. He did not force the teams to accept the rules. They had meetings in which all teams agreed to the rule changes (or did not complain about them at the time) including the rudders. He felt he had the approval of all the teams prior to announcing them. Then he was ambushed for whatever reason by ETNZ and LR. You can see why he's pissed. Then there is the one other bit that is interesting, during his talk he says LR had spun out a couple times. That is news to me at least. So much for the so called perfect foiling design. I think it's time to give the man what he wants. Anyone that thinks US-17 needs IM to step in and win them the regatta is drinking some bad koolaid.
