A Club is a CLUB

Part of the legal battle being waged by Larry Ellison’s BMW/Oracle Racing team regarding the next America’s Cup event concerns the matter of the definition of a yacht club.

By some measures, it’s said to be a group that sponsors major sailing events and appears to offer the many functions of a typical yacht club: Holds meetings, operates a marina for members' boats, sponsors regattas, offers a restaurant...and a some have bars (imagine!) ....

Just moments after the 2007 America’s Cup was awarded to Alinghi, the America’s Cup Management organization is said to have received an immediate application from a so-called yacht club called Nautico Espano de Vela. A few reporters raced to the Internet to obtain more information about the club. It didn’t exist, in the general sense. What was this club and why is this important?

It’s VERY IMPORTANT because the first application received by the Cup organization becomes the Challenger of Record - - with duties to oversee activities of ALL of the other CHALLENGER yacht…potentially a big deal as the Cup rules evolve and disputes arise.

BMW/Oracle, the Cup’s PREVIOUS Challenge of Record, naturally challenged the validity of this new “phantom” club. As it turns out, previous America’s Cup events have had a variety of different “clubs” participate, according to a recent on-line article in Sailing World Magazine, written by Stuart Streuli.

He writes that Alinghi’s legal counsel, Hamish Ross, has named six yacht clubs that challenged for the Cup, and were accepted and raced competitively, despite their lack of performing “traditional” yacht club functions.

Specifically:

* Sun City YC, which sponsored Alan Bond's Australian challenger in 1977, is said to have been formed to create interest in a land development in Perth, Australia.
* Canada's Secret Cove YC, formed just for the Cup, held its first regatta AFTER its Challenge was accepted.
* Japan's Nippon YC, formed just for the Cup, was so lacking in purpose that it was never actually incorporated and imploded after the races!
* The Australian YC, sponsor of Syd Fisher's campaign in 1995, was (what what that club, anyway?).
* The Southern Cross YC, which John Bertrand formed to sponsor the OneAustralia syndicate, and was incorporated AFTER its challenge was accepted;
* The Cortez Sailing Association, conducted meetings in a bar and backed Dennis Conner's challenge in 2000.
* Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, Challengers for the Cup in 1987 and 1992, won it in 1995, and defended it successfully in 2000 before losing it in 2003. The Club wasn't incorporated until 2003.

So, when is a club a CLUB when it comes to the America’s Cup events? Probably WHENEVER IT WANTS TO BE ONE. The function of the CLUB is to represent either a city or country in its challenge for the Cup - - not to lay claim to anything else, as GRANDFATHERED BY COMMON LAW into many America’s Cup races.