América's Cup – Antonio Spinelli from ARGO Challenge (BRA)

Much has been said lately regarding the 33rd America's Cup being dragged back to court following GGYC/BMWOracle’s decision to appeal last week NY Appellate Division’s ruling. We have asked a few questions to ARGO Challenge team’s principal, Antonio Spinelli (Brazil), to give his view on the matter.

Sébastien Destremau: Antonio Spinelli, you are the Principal of the Brazilian team Argo Challenge. Can you tell us what was your feeling when you’ve heard the news about the Appellate division reinstating CNEV as Challenger of record ?
ARGO Challenge AS: We were surprised to hear about this ruling, however at this stage this does not contribute much to that level of certainty we and our sponsors would have liked. In the past year many surprises have made our life pretty hectic.

SD: What were the implication of this ruling from your team stand point? And how soon would you have liked a ‘conventional’ regatta to be held?
ARGO Challenge AS: At this point these are not very important implications for our team. We were in a very good conditions in October 2007 when we decided to present our entry with the hope to participate in an event in 2009. Unfortunately on November 2007 everything changed and for everybody, not only for us, it was the beginning of a very difficult situation.

SD: Do you think BMWOracle was right in appealing this latest decision? And in your opinion are their reasons genuine or self serving?
ARGO Challenge AS: We think is reasonable that if someone has an opportunity , he shall use it. Sometimes you want to be genuine and you seem self serving. Or exactly the contrary. It’s very difficult to have an opinion on this , whilst is it obvious that not enough people were able to foresee the impact on the image of this event .

SD: Do you foresee an out of court settlement between GGYC and SNG?
ARGO Challenge AS: It would be great, but it seems very difficult

SD: Should GGYC lose the next legal round, will you look favorable at them competing in the next America’s Cup?
ARGO Challenge AS: Yes, of course. If you lost in a court, you should have the possibility to compete with the rules of the winner in the water. Legal affaires are different from sport competition and we as a team believe in sailing competition, leaving the court's affairs to lawyers.

SD: You entered the 33AC under the Alinghi protocol that BMW Oracle keep criticizing. Was it so unfair as they say or just similar to previous ones? Did you subsequently participated in making it better?
ARGO Challenge AS: As you well know, the law of the America’s Cup is: he who wins decides ! The protocol could be judged difficult or even unfair, but you can always decide to stay out of the competition. It was not possible for us to participate in making it different . But it seemed that Alinghi was on the way to do some changes.

SD: Anything you would like to add?
ARGO Challenge AS: It will be very difficult to create an interesting atmosphere around the next America’s Cup , and to recover the trust and enthusiasm of all sponsoring companies and sailing’s passionate. Without doubts big sponsors will be very careful to join the event and to support the teams for the next conventional edition. We hope that our challenge, so different from the others, could be useful to try to do grow up a new interest for the most important event of all the sailing world. And we hope that whoever will organize the next America’s Cup understand this.

SD: Thank you for your time Antonio