San Diego Yacht Club to Appeal Ruling

The San Diego Yacht Club today announced that it will appeal a New York judge’s ruling that forfeits the America’s Cup to defeated New Zealand challenger Michael Fay.

The nine-member SDYC board voted unanimously to take up the appeal after Saturday’s recommendation by its organizer, the America’s Cup Organizing Committee, to pursue the action.

“As trustee, we feel our overriding responsibility is to protect the future viability of the America’s Cup,” yacht club Commodore Patrick Goddard said. “A sporting event cannot survive under the vague rule of the court’s decision.”

‘Not Our Preference’

“Our decision to appeal was not an easy one and was reached with care and deliberation,” he said. “Going to court is not our preference. For over 100 years we have been sailors and competitors, and we believe that yacht races should be decided on the water.”

But Goddard said they believed that they had no choice, given the principle involved.

Pending the New York court’s final orders of its ruling last Tuesday, disqualifying the San Diego club’s catamaran defense against Fay’s monohull sloop, the America’s Cup will remain in San Diego’s hands.

“We strongly feel that the court should not have the power to overturn the results of a sporting event seven months after it is over. . . . It is incomprehensible to us that a court would order the America’s Cup be sent to a yacht club that has never won an America’s Cup match,” Goddard said.

Goddard argued that all organized sports had governing bodies responsible for setting and administering the rules.

“The court doesn’t understand that we have such an authority in our sport. It is called the International Yacht Racing Union, and has a set of rules that the SDYC has adopted. The America’s Cup match in 1988 was governed by those same rules,” Goddard said, adding that Mercury Bay had agreed to the IYRU rules prior to the September races.

Fay’s challenge was launched under the banner of the Mercury Bay Boating Club.

New York Supreme Court Judge Carmen Ciparick’s ruling in favor of New Zealand merchant banker Fay said the yacht club’s unprecedented catamaran defense was illegal under the Deed of Gift, a 102-year-old document that governs America’s Cup matches.

Dennis Conner skippered the yacht club’s 60-foot catamaran, Stars and Stripes, to an easy sweep of Fay’s 133-foot, single-hulled sloop in the best-of-three series off San Diego last September.

The New York court, which serves as arbiter of America’s Cup disputes, ruled that use of the two-hulled catamaran created a gross mismatch and violated the spirit of the Deed of Gift.

The appeal process could take about a year. That leaves adrift the fate of the next America’s Cup race, which had been planned for 1991.

24-Month Period

An agreement that potential challengers adopted in January during a meeting in San Diego requires a minimum 24-month period between the end of litigation in this case and the next America’s Cup.

Even without an appeal, Fay’s case would not officially be finished until final documents are completed and filed in several weeks. That would be too late for New Zealand to host a 1991 defense because the Deed of Gift requires all races in the Southern Hemisphere to begin by April 30.

“Appeal or no appeal, 1991 was not likely,” ACOC Executive Director Tom Ehman said. “An appeal now will not actually delay an event.”