There had to come a time when the IJ wished that they were anywhere else, doing anything else. They stated when issuing the penalty that they did not want to decide the outcome of the cup 'in the room,' which nearly happened.
As bad as the incident was, I still don't understand how they had the authority to dock the points. The ACWS was purely a marketing event, and while I agree with penalizing cheaters, can't get my head around taking points away from the AC based upon that.
Mike
The way this rolled over is tinted with a lot of irony. When developing the rules for this iteration of the AC, a rule was put in place that provided the IJ the authority to penalize teams for actions that "tarnish the image of the cup" (I paraphrase...but you get the idea). The intent of the rule was pretty clear in that it was to prevent Grant Dalton from making loud and negative public comments about the AC as he has been prone to in the past. The rule was comically referred to as "the Dalton rule". NZ's protest against Oracle related to the AC45 cheating were about Oracle having tarnished the image of the cup. The protest, and the subsequent penalties and had nothing to do with one class of boats vs. another. This is how it rolled into the 72 footers. I would bet that rule gets a tweak before the next iteration.
In my opinion, the real tarnishing of the cup happened with the publicity related to the protest, hearing, and rulings. Otherwise, it would have been a small blurb in one of Richard Gladwell's articles...Oracle turns in their trophies from the AC45's and all would be well.
