"This is about 625 grams"

Ericsson Racing Team's Richard Brisius and Luis Saenz announce they wish to re-open the case of Ericsson 3's illegal keel

Following the findings of the Volvo Ocean Race international jury and the penalty imposed on Ericsson 3 for having an illegal keel, so Richard Brisius and Ericsson Racing Team legal council Luis Saenz have announced that they wish to reopen the case. Earlier Bryan Willis had announced the findings of the Volvo Ocean Race’s international jury and the penalty for the Anders Lewander’s Nordic crew on Ericsson 3: they will be docked two points on offshore legs and one point for each day of in-port racing and scoring gates.

“Following the decision by the jury that we received less than two hours ago we are still studying this decision by the jury, but we are really surprised and shocked by this decision and we have asked for a reopening of the hearing to present new evidence,” explained Brisius, who’s company Atlant have previously been behind the Ericsson's 2005-6 Volvo Ocean Race effort as well as the Assa Abloy and EF campaigns. “We thought we had made it perfectly clear that we had made the best endeavours possible to comply with the rules, but the jury has decided to give us a penalty which is at a level which we have never seen in this race before.

“This is about our Nordic crew, a group of people from Finland, Sweden Norway and Denmark who have got the opportunity to be part of this race for the first time for most of them,” continued Brisius. “We have added 162kg to the keel and we did not find any method to add 625 extra grammes, so there should be a few more grammes in the keel. And the new Nordic crew who came here full of team spirit and they have been penalised. But we have great hope that the jury will take in our new evidence and there will be a fair and good outcome.”

Luis Saenz added that the work had been carried out in the presence of the measurers, who recognise that the end result gives Ericsson 3 no performance advantage.

While Bryan Willis confirmed that the case cannot be appealed, it can be reopened. To date the case has been dealt with by email with Chairman of the Jury Bryan Willis in Alicante and the relevant papers going to jurors David Tillett, John Doerr, Mats Bjorklund and Shane Borrell.

“We think that the jury needs to consider some more evidence which we didn’t have the opportunity to present in a papers only procedure,” said Saenz. “There must be a proper hearing in order for them to have the opportunity to hear these new areas. We will press for that to be achieved.”

Brisius summed up: “It is about 625g. We just had a meeting with the 11 Nordic crew member and it was extremely hard to try to explain to them why they are being penalised because of 625g.”