Team skipper, Brad Butterworth, gives us the latest news after Justice Cahn ruled the CNEV invalid last night. The team is now conducting a thorough review of the decision and an analysis of the various options offered by the Deed of Gift…

BB: Well it’s a legal court case. It is a little bit disappointing because it has been five months in the making and everything has really been parked even though there has been a lot of work on the new class rule and a way forward. I am not sure where it is going to go from here.

BB: The next step for the team is to try and decide on where we go forward and what we do from here on to get this Cup underway. That is going to take a bit of thought and work to see how to come up with the best scenario.

 

BB: I think these things take a while. In the beginning, we were obviously looking forward to sailing these new boats in 2009 and having a regatta with the other challengers. Now it is pretty hard to understand what the next step will be, but I am still looking forward to racing against Oracle and the other teams in these new AC90s.

 

BB: He is as disappointed as anybody, after the success of the last campaign and the last event. It is going to be hard to reproduce that. I think he is as disappointed as any one of us, as he sees a lot of hard work going down the drain.

BB: Well it took us a year to organise the last event with them as Challenger of Record, so I think we’ll probably be in the same scenario. Hopefully we can get something together a lot sooner than that. Last time it was very difficult and they never really put their hand up for this time until we actually won, so I don’t know how it is going to go.

 

BB: I think the legal proceedings are nonsense personally, I think it has been a waste of everyone’s time and pure nonsense. I look forward to actually racing in the regatta, but I don’t know when that is going to be.

 

BB: Well there is no happy ending with this. The last Cup was a great event and it was great to have it here in Europe. Spain put on a hell of a show. Now this has put the Cup back years and this cycle is going to be a difficult one.

 

BB: I think everybody is waiting to see what happens. There are two strong teams that are deciding the future of the next event and at the moment it is a case of ‘watch this space’. It’s like it has been since 3 or 4 days after we won the last Cup in July, it’s parked and really it is good for no one.

 

BB: My negotiating skills are very coarse, so I’m not sure I’d make a good negotiator!

 

BB: I think this is a tough time for the Cup. You wouldn’t call it a ‘Stella moment’ and like I said there is no real happy ending. The sponsors, everyone is in there needing a bang for their buck, not just the sponsors but the owners as well. In the past we have had a great relationship with them all and there has been a clear set path that we go down, but right now it is looking pretty grey.

 

BB: I came down with Ernesto to see the City officials and to visit the team that is down here working and really just to see what is going on. There has been a bit of bad news and so we have come down to have a chat about it and try to find a strategy to go forward.

 

BB: My gut feeling is I really wouldn’t know. I would love to see the AC90 go ahead because that has been the focus of a class change and I think the Cup needs it. And the catamaran thing, well that would be a difficult prospect.

 

BB: My catamaran skills are bad. Last time I was in one I got into a lot of trouble colliding with several other boats on the Lake Geneva, so it didn’t go too well although I was successful in the event.

 

BB: Yeah although I think Grant Simmer might quite like the helm position, or Pierre-Yves Jorand!

 

BB: Well if the thing went to multihulls, there are a lot of very good advisors outside of the team. You’ve got a lot of French and Swiss involved in that area. It would be something completely different. It would certainly be a huge shake-up for the Cup if that happened.

 

BB: Well it is certainly not dull, but the court case to me is really nonsense. I really think it is such a backwards step to have to go through that procedure.

 

BB: I think they all support us and always have in the past. We have some long term partnerships with them. But like I said they need to have a bang for their buck and just like anyone else, they have got businesses to run and whether they hang in there will depend upon how the events shapes up. But right now the event is looking pretty sick because it is not far to 2009 and there is a lot of work to do and nobody has had any direction or certainty yet.

 

BB: Alinghi, being the Defender, will never have an easy relationship with the challengers. Their goal is to win the America’s Cup. That is their end game. They don’t really want to see a great event, although it would help them with their sponsorship to a certain extent. They just want to win it and take it back to their own country to do with it what Alinghi has done with it. So you’re at cross purposes from day one. It’s not really great for the event or for the future business of the Cup, but we will see.