Rattue on the Oracle cheats

Herald sports columnist Chris Rattue is seldom short of a controversial word. And he's likely to upset some in the sailing fraternity with his piece today; check this out:

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.
The international jury - now there's a flash title for the over-seers of a tub race - might be chuffed with their handiwork but it's done nothing for the America's Cup proper, which begins on Sunday.
I say proper with tongue poking through cheek, because there is rarely much proper about this fascinating, mysterious, random and often utterly stupid sporting contest that pits man against man, design against the elements and the rest of us against our better judgment.
Something we can definitely do without is a grand final contest in which one of the combatants starts in deficit, as defenders Oracle will do after the jury punished Larry Ellison's outfit for dark deeds in the America's Cup World Series.
This is like forcing a Melbourne Cup jockey to discard his whip because of a track work incident, or getting Mike Tyson to fight one handed for yelling at one of his pigeons. Who cares what happened in a convenient invention called the America's Cup World Series and who even needs an America's Cup World Series? The cup combatants are either in or out. Racing must start at nil-all.

The precedent also has nightmare legal-tangle potential. Wait for the claims of world series yacht rigging and even jury rigging to explode. There are already too many lawyers involved. Compared with the mad history of the cup, whatever Oracle did in what should be considered a separate lead-up series is irrelevant and trivial.
The successful history of the Auld Mug is one of a stand-alone contest, not part of a world circuit which doesn't even use the same class of boat under the command of Dean Barker and James Spithill out of San Francisco. If Team New Zealand were to win the Cup, by say a one-race margin, it will be a hollow and probably much-contested victory that will, justifiably, squirm in a pile of legal argument.
As for banning one sailor for "cheating", most of us will presume he acted under orders which creates the image of a jury that doesn't know what it is doing.
But here's the key point: a separate competition - which has the name but no direct link to the America's Cup contest - should not affect the cup scoreline.

Whilst Oracle's cheating in the AC World Series was serious, Rattue raises a valid point; should Oracle be penalised in the actual America's Cup match? But on the other hand, would a sanction which does not have any effect on their America's Cup defence be sufficient for a pretty flagrant disregard of the rules of fair play?

Chris Rattue is right on one point however; even though the international jury's decision is not able to be appealed, you can bet your bottom dollar that the lawyers will be involved, and they won't be nickel-and-dime lawyers either. The meters will be running at a number of high-powered law firms, if previous America's Cup contests are anything to go by.

And on a related matter, we've asked regular reader and commenter Quintin Hogg for a sailor's opinion on the Cup match, which we'll publish before the first race on Sunday. QH sails a little in his spare time, and knows far more about things nautical than we do.