Is a multihull a keel yacht?

Ernesto Bertarelli discusses the current state of play with the America's Cup court case

On Wednesday the America's Cup was back before Justice Herman Cahn of the New York Supreme Court this time for a whole hour. If the judge's 27 November 2007 ruling saw the advantage go to Ellison/BMW Oracle/Golden Gate YC, the latest round of legal machinations culminating in Wednesday's hearing has seen the legal upper hand shift the opposite way in favour of Bertarelli/Alinghi/Societe Nautique de Geneve.

While in November Justice Cahn ruled that the newly formed Spanish club, the CNEV was invalid in its role as Alinghi's Challenger of Record over a technicality - they hadn't previously held an 'annual regatta' in accordance with the terms stipulated in the America's Cup governing document, the Deed of Gift - so in the build-up to Wednesday's hearing Alinghi's lawyers have been making a similar case against the GGYC challenge over a discrepancy in the certificate accompanying their challenging document. This specifies that their challenge will be in a 'keel yacht' that will at the same time have 'an extreme beam of 90ft wide' (see above). Most have assumed 90ft wide means a multihull - but at the same time a keel yacht? Someone presumably failed to scrub the word from a previous Protocol document..

During a day off due to a lack of wind at Key West, Alinghi principal Ernesto Bertarelli took time out to state his case: "If GGYC is to challenge Alinghi with a keel yacht that is 90 by 90ft, it is most likely to look like a barge. We are very happy to entertain a regatta against a barge, but I don’t think that is the point of our argument. The point of our argument is that GGYC did not submit the correct certificate and therefore cannot be entertained as a Challenger of Record."

To back up their case the SNG have a letter from ISAF's Jerome Pels stating that a multihull is not a keel yacht (see below).

Bertarelli backed this up by directing people towards the US Sailing website, where he says it "clearly describes four types of vessel that can be raced in the United States: Small boats, keel boats, windsurfers and multihulls. And when you go into the keelboat selection, it reads ‘a keelboat refers to a sailboat which has a weighted keel which is sufficient in weight to counterbalance of the force of wind in the sails'. It goes about stating that 'beyond the basic keel, the term 'keelboat' goes on to describe vessels and yachts through a much larger size'. So I guess the certificate of the GGYC describes a large keel yacht. It further goes about describing a multihull and says ‘multihulls do not need ballast/heavy keel to keep them upright’.

Sadly this is exactly the sort of technicality that could nail the Golden Gate YC unless their lawyers can deliver compelling evidence to the contrary. From the hearing on Wednesday both sides had four days to deliver further submissions backing up their cases.

A small chink of light is that in ancient times the Cup was sailed in large monohulls with lifting keels. In fact the Deed of Gift itself while fairly vague in many areas is categoric when it comes to this, stipulating:

"Center-board or sliding keel vessels shall always be allowed to compete in any race for this Cup, and no restriction nor limitation whatever shall be placed upon the use of such center-board or sliding keel, nor shall the centerboard or sliding keel be considered a part of the vessel for any purposes of measurement." This is surely multihull territory?

Getting down to minutae such as this, together with the spin from both sides, it is difficult to see the wood from the trees. The original grievance had by the Golden Gate YC was not over the CNEV being an invalid Challenger of Record but over their being effectively Alinghi's puppet allowing the Swiss defender to dictate the terms of the 33rd America's Cup with little by way of apparent attempt at mutual consent (where both sides agree).

Since then Alinghi have backpedalled greatly - they have removed from the Protocol clauses such as one which gave them the right to turn down a challenge if they so chose to, challengers were involved in the creation of the AC90 and to placate those who argued that the Swiss design team had an advantage through advance warning of the new AC90 rule, they allowed the challengers who had signed up to choose the displacement of the new Cup boat. Around November when the judge ruled in the GGYC's favour, the positions of the two sides seemed incredibly close, virtually aligned even on most of the big issues, and yet sadly at this point the clashing egos and viewpoints of the billionaires and their teams would not allow them to reach resolution.

So what happens now? The next step is expected to be Justice Cahn ruling over the validity of the GGYC challenge.

According to Ernesto Bertarelli, they have three options depending upon the outcome of the judge's ruling. If they lose then they have two choices. They can appeal against the judge's decision which would certainly see the case rattling on in the courts for months to come as both sides' legal fees soar. Alternatively they could agree to a Deed of Gift 33rd America's Cup, a "dog match" as Bertarelli refers to it. If this were the case then the next step for Justice Cahn would be to stipulate the terms of such a match.

Here there has been much entertaining conjecture over the last weeks about what Alinghi might to do make such a Deed of Gift match as awkward as possible for Oracle. How about staging the event not in comfortable Valencia, but in Iran or Cuba, where there would be distinct problems for any Americans wishing to compete?

Then there is the prospect of Alinghi winning, of the judge deeming that the GGYC challenge is invalid in which case it would be back to square one - or almost at least - with the 33rd America's Cup being held in 2011. However Justice Cahn having ruled that both the CNEV and the GGYC were invalid, this would leave a situation where there is no Challenger of Record. To cover this eventuality was why Sir Keith Mills' TeamOrigin cleverly stepped into the breach issuing their own challenge to the SNG last week.

Some wording from Bertarelli on this topic highlights how one sided he views the supposed 'Mutual Consent' process between the Defender and Challenger of Record:
"if indeed GGYC was to be determined invalid, we would have to pick another Challenger of Record." Traditionally the defender doesn't pick the Challenger of Record, the defender is challenged and if the challenge is valid according to the Deed of Gift, the defender is obliged to accept.

So despite TeamOrigin's best intentions, in Bertarelli's mind TeamOrigin will not become the de facto Challenger of Record if the judge rules the GGYC challenge invalid. "You could consider the 12 teams that have submitted documents to challenge to the CNEV front runners as challengers as well. Technically I haven’t gone as far as determining who would be the proper challenger." To be fair Bertarelli seemed unclear about the legality of this point.

At the briefing at Key West Bertarelli once again laid into Ellison and his team for holding the Cup to ransom: "It is unfortunate that we are in court, but I’d like to bring you back to the 32nd America’s Cup and its great success. With any success one has to have a vision. One can remember that that vision we had now almost four or five years ago was at the time criticised maybe because it was perhaps not completely explained, but ultimately trust was provided to Alinghi to organise and run it and it resulted in a fantastic event, possibly the best ever. Now we had a vision that was certainly different to the vision of the 32nd America’s Cup for the 33rd America’s Cup (but so was the vision of the 32nd America’s Cup different from the vision of the 31st AC) - that’s how you write history, that’s how you progress the sport. We worked at putting forward a Protocol, a class of yacht, the AC90, some rules and ultimately received 12 challengers who signed agreeing to what was proposed and the vision we had for racing in 2009. We had additional four challengers who expressed their interest, bringing the number of potential teams, excluding Oracle, to 16. Now it wasn’t our decision to bring this matter to court. My question is - how can it be that 12 teams coming from different countries can accept a vision for an event and can trust the defender and provide him with the facility to orchestrate the event and why can one team cannot see the obvious and for very personal and self-centred reasons put all this at risk? That is the question I have."

Compelling argument though this is, if Alinghi's Protocol for the 33rd America's Cup hadn't been so biased in favour of the defender and there has been some semblance of 'mutual consent' with the challengers from the outset, then the legal wranglings of the last few months are most unlikely to have taken place. The teams that entered did so because they wanted to enter the America's Cup regardless of the rules. Even the likes of Team New Zaaland and Mascalzone Latino, which had originally sided with BMW Oracle in the dispute were among those to sign up.

Another intriguing aside from Bertarelli's comments is he still uses the word 'possibly' when referring to the 33rd America's Cup being held in Valencia.

When asked if he would have done anything differently since winning the 32nd America's Cup in July, Bertarelli had an interesting response:

"It is very easy to say I wished that the CNEV had organised a regatta prior to challenging - that was an obvious thing we would have liked to have had. Otherwise our objective was to rebound as quickly as possible from the success of the 32nd America’s Cup and push the game forward rapidly at the expense of maybe some explanation. Maybe we didn’t wait long enough to announce the Protocol," he said. If this was the case maybe they could have organised a proper communications strategy he maintains.

He continues: "But the reality is that if you want to do a two year cycle you need to start getting things moving quickly. The 32nd America’s Cup Protocol had a complete rewrite in November 2003, that is more than nine months after we won the Cup. We completed all documents relating to the 33rd America’s Cup in November 2007 which is only four months after we won the America’s Cup, so we actually achieved the timing in order to be in a position to organise a Cup in 2009, maybe at the detriment of giving people the time to think and to be understood.

"One of the major intents was also to reduce cost. What is most expensive in a Cup campaign is time. The longer you give teams to prepare the more time they have to spend money.

"The other thing was that we demonstrated is that there is a huge interest in Cup racing.

"And we were in a position to find sponsors for a two year cycle and not have to wait four years. So not only do you reduce the amount of money you have to spend, you accelerate the revenue cycle which is a win-win when it comes to trying to make the America’s Cup break even. There is a misperception in the sailing world that Alinghi is making any money with this. Believe me, it is not a good business proposition to win the America’s Cup. It is really something you do because you are passionate about the sport and because you want to do something for the sport and I think we did that with the 32nd America’s Cup.

"The other perception that I want to own the America’s Cup forever is untrue. I hope I proved that by sponsoring the team which ultimately made us look weak at times [Team New Zealand]. I think that we were unfortunately stopped by, in my opinion, very selfish, self-centred interests, which, as we see now, don’t serve anyone."

While on the one hand Bertarelli said that the Protocol for the 33rd America's Cup had been amended so that Alinghi no longer had the right to decide which teams can compete in the America's Cup, on the other he seems to think he can decide whether or not BMW Oracle would be able to challenge if he won the court case, again revealing the thinly veiled dictatorship.

"The opportunity for Oracle to enter was given all along the process and specifically put in writing several times. At this stage honestly I don’t know. I think they have created sufficient damage to the Cup to possibly sit one out as they have de facto forced 12 teams to sit this one out as well. Why would the action of Larry Ellison, who is pushing his weight around without having won the America's Cup and damaged the interest of 12 teams who basically have to watch him using his wealth in court to his benefit - why is that right? Why should he have the right to compete when he is preventing 12 team from competing. You tell me?

"It is a difficult question. Maybe. We offered him several times the opportunity. He refused it. We might offer it again but I don’t know.

"The problem is that every time they have the upper hand in court, it is their way. Now that, guess what, maybe they forget to check their document like CNEV did, now maybe we should sit down and mediate? Maybe we should allow them to participate? There is a point in time where you have to respect the fact if that if you take certain actions you have to be held responsible for them."

"When you defend the Cup you have a responsibility towards a lot of people, including disgruntled teams. When you have not won the Cup and are probably hurt as a result of it and the only thing you want do is push your weight around in order to win, it is a lot easier - just throw stones and throw everything you have at it, but you don’t have to bare any consequencies."

As to the prospect of a 'dog match' or a Deed of Gift Challenge in multihulls Bertarelli had this to say:

"We never entertained a dog match whereas it is clear from the multihull community that Larry’s team had already hired a set of designers and sailors and had initiated design and possibly construction of a multihull by the end of last year.

As to their progress down this avenue: "We haven’t a specific multihull sailor yet. We are very early on in the process of thinking about a dog match if the US courts were to force us into a dog match. Our design team is very proficient and very good and we would mostly likely mainly rely on our team. I don’t have the resources that Larry has to push forward two parallel designs one for an AC and one a multihull. I only have one team."

So finally we would like to raise a query of our readers that is likely to determine the outcome of the court case...can a multihull be defined as a keel yacht? A keel on a monohull is clearly there first to add stability by being heavy, thereby preventing the yacht from falling over, but it's other equally crucial role is to provide lift hence why yachts can sail to weather. On a multihull which is inherently stable there is no need for the keel or keels to provide added stability however they absolutely require this secondary function to go upwind and this is why they are fitted with daggerboards or in some cases centreboards. On traditional yachts daggerboards are sometimes known as 'sliding keels'. So surely therefore a multihull daggerboard qualifies as a keel?

Probably not a good enough argument to appease a judge...

What are your views on this? Email us here

To catch Bertarelli's discussion on video - click here

From Jerome Pels of ISAF

In reply to your request of an interpretation from ISAF:
A multihull is a ship, boat or yacht formed of more than one hull.

The additional hulls provide stability, typically to hold the vessel upright against the sideways force of the wind on the sails.

This is in contrast to monohulls which may use a ballasted keel for this purpose, especially on larger sailboats. Multihulls usually have no ballasted keels.

Monohulls are weight stabilised by keeping their center of gravity well below their center of buoyancy. When this is done by adding ballast weight in a hull appendage they are usually defined as keelboats.

Multihulls principally rely on their form stability, where at small angles of heel the centre of buoyancy moves to leeward of the centre of gravity.

‘On the difference between a keel yacht and a multihull yacht’:
ISAF publishes a document called the Equipment Rules of Sailing

Its application is covered in a footnote.

The terms ‘Yacht’, ‘Keel Yacht’ and ‘Multihull’ are not defined terms in the ERS 2005-2008.
‘Keel’ is defined in section E.1.2 as:
“A fixed hull appendage, attached approximately on the hull centreplane, primarily used to affect stability and leeway.
The draft ERS 2009-2012 do include a definition of ‘Monohull’ and ‘Multihull’:
Monohull C.6.2 (a) “A boat with one hull”
Multihull C.6.2 (b) “A boat with more than one hull”
Footnote:
ERS Application:
The ERS are adopted by ISAF as a code governing the use of equipment while racing. The ERS are made applicable as stated in Applicability, below:

Applicability
The ERS may be made applicable by:
(a) Class Rules
(b) Adoption by a rating authority for racing under its jurisdiction,
(c) Adoption in the Notice of Race and sailing Instructions for an event.
(d) Prescriptions of an MNA for racing under its jurisdiction
(e) Other ISAF codes and rules adopted by Council

In general dictionary references including “The Sailing Dictionary” by Joachim Schult the term yacht does not specifically exclude a multihull.

In the 1960s IYRU/ISAF created a Catamaran Committee, which then became a Multihull Committee around 1970. For the period up to 2004 IYRU/ISAF had as separate committees:
Keelboat Committee
Multihull Committee

For the purpose of the choice of equipment (boats) for the Olympic Games, ISAF would therefore not consider a multihull to fit in the ‘keelboat’ category. Therefore a “multihull” yacht would not be classified as a “keel” yacht.