Trouble At The Top?

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The rumor mill has been grinding out speculation sausage steadily for nearly a week now, ever since "Dolphin Striker Gate" new broke followed shortly by Artemis's quick exit from the Louis Vuitton competition. Speculation being the objective word, but the noise keeps echoing back.

Changes with each campaign are inevitable, one of the loudest rumors we have heard repeatedly is Artemis shall return for another campaign, less CEO Paul Cayard.

Another loud one on is the impending dismissal of Russell Coutts from Oracle, and with any sausage, the making of it ain't pretty. But with the impending International Jury looking into the alleged illegal modifications of the Oracle Racing AC45's in the AC World Series, there is bound to be some blood letting, and the shadows lurking in the dark corners are suggesting Russell will fall on the sword.

The ironic part of the equation, is both Paul and Russell had teamed up together in 2007
to form the World Sailing League:

Twelve teams, representing nations, will compete in identical, state-of-the-art 70ft catamarans. It is anticipated that there will be venues in the Mediterranean, Northern Europe, the Middle East, Asia, North America and South America. Cayard and Coutts are both committed to skipper teams in the league.

http://members.sailing.org/news/16218.php


While the World Sailing League failed due to financial constraints, the concept stayed very much alive and was reconstituted within the confines of the 34th Americas Cup, with Russell and Paul become CEO's of 2 of the Cup Campaigns

We reiterate, these are rumors, nothing but. The days and weeks to follow are certain to have numerous twist's and turns.

Hold on, the road may get a bit bumpy!

[fototaker]

wow... very interesting indeed!

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Gross Misconduct



The plot thickens as the International Jury takes on the Rule 69 Investigation and David Tillett has levied a gag order until the jury concludes this hearing.

Justin Chisholm produced a nice OP Ed piece on the accusations: HERE

Justin's Interview with James Spithill over the weekend can be seen above.


This apparently isn't going away anytime soon...

[fototaker]

what about this great end-result of a complaint of trepassing recently by OTUSA? this will DISCOURAGE teams from filing a complaint in the future unless it's truly warranted!

http://noticeboard.americascup.com/w...1/08/JN111.pdf

[Angry Dolphin]

Who's head will roll for that act of idiocy?

[fototaker]

just a drop in da bucket for them. i wonder if it'll even be paid personally. perhaps the organization will pay it off... yea right

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It's been rumored that OR has retained the services of one David Boies, one of the most expensive,
influential attorneys on the planet to represent Oracle Racing at the International Jury Hearings and possibly
post Americas Cup litigation....

hmmmmmmmm

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The Waters Are Getting Muddier

Our friends at Sail Racing Magazine got their mitts on one of the just released Measurement Committee reports:

http://noticeboard.americascup.com/w...port240813.pdf

[Buzz Light Beer]

Rules are meant to be broken, right?

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Jury Notice Regarding Today's Hearing

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The international jury investigating illegal weight placements by Oracle Team USA during the America's Cup World Series said it won't announce a decision until early next week.

A day earlier the jury said on the Cup website that a decision would come by the end of this week. The complexity of the case apparently caused the delay.

A jury hearing for the Oracle team's management was delayed from Thursday to Friday, apparently because interviews of the team's employees took longer than anticipated.

Two members of the five-person jury have spent the past three days investigating the case and interviewing 16 members of the Oracle sailing and shore teams and five members of America's Cup Race Management.

Depending on how severely the jury of the International Sailing Federation decides the punishment should be for Oracle's admitted rules violations, the defending champion could be forced to forfeit races in the best-of-17 finals against Emirates Team New Zealand.

The finals begin Sept. 7 and could run as late as Sept. 21
Tom FitzGerald is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: tfitzgerald@sfchronicle.com

http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article...ek-4772705.php

[IOR Geezer]

The boss can't be happy with this.

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Bloomberg Business Week is reporting what we Pressure Drop reported a month ago Clicky. That Paul Cayard would be relieved of his duties at Artemis Racing. We were told back then that Ian Percey was the new CEO, but until now, it was unconfirmed.

Bloomberg Report