120 Boating New Zealand
“hose guys weren’t being paid what they were worth and
suddenly someone comes along ofering to set them up for life.
Meanwhile, millions were being made by local developers and
others beneiting from the Cup in New Zealand. It should never
have happened.”
In 2001 Butterworth asked Ross to join Alinghi full time.
“It was a life-changing moment, but it took a lot of soul-
searching to decide.”
He resigned his Bell Gully partnership and became Alinghi’s
full-time legal counsel. One of the things he was involved with
was dealing with TNZ’s ‘hula’, an appendage attached to the
afterbody of the hull designed to increase waterline length
and therefore speed, without increasing the boat’s measured
waterline length.
Alinghi quickly tested a hula shape on SUI75 but found it
slower and decided the concept wasn’t worth pursuing. But
the team used the hula as reverse psychology. Pretending to be
worried about the hula’s potential, every opportunity was taken
to question its legality to keep TNZ’s focus on retaining the hula.
his had major ramiications when Alinghi trounced TNZ ive-nil
while the fragile NZL82 failed to even inish two of the races.
Ross was straight into action planning for the 2007 AC,
eventually held in Valencia. His most important contribution
there was drafting and negotiating the Protocol, which
eventually distributed a proit to each competitor dependent on
where they inished. As the AC challenger, Emirates Team New
Zealand (ETNZ) received more than €10 million.
“It’d never happened before – nor since – that other
competitors received a commercial return from the event itself.”
In 2006 Ross received a phone call that the 1898 Arch
Logan-designed Rainbow was up for sale. Realising the yacht
was too much for one, a syndicate was formed with David
Glenn, Butterworth and the yacht’s owners, the Dimmock
family, to purchase the dream Logan.
After a full restoration Rainbow was relaunched in 2007 to
rejoin her fellow Logan sisters, Ariki, Iorangi, Moana, helma,
Rawhiti and Waitangi – the so-called big seven. he syndicate
continues to race Rainbow to this day and she’s a regular sight at
CYA events.
Back to the 2007 AC. While ETNZ performed well, Ross
never felt the series was in doubt even though by then Coutts
had left Alinghi.
One of the interesting side aspects to the 2007 event was the
poor showing of Larry Ellison’s Oracle campaign. Possibly partly to
divert attention away from this, Ellison instituted a legal challenge
against Alinghi, claiming it had violated the Deed of Gift.
It was the most litigated issue in the AC. Twenty-one judges
and arbitrators considered the issue; 11 in favour of Alinghi (all
eight arbitrators appointed by the sport and three New York
appellate judges); 10 (all New York judges) for Ellison.
While the New York courts and its judges were divided, the
sport was unanimous in reaching the opposite view. It was
a dark, unhealthy period in AC history but Alinghi was not
the irst foreign competitor to come to grief in the New York
Court system. Ross has been working to keep the AC out of a
courtroom again.
he upshot was in 2010, Oracle and Alinghi faced of, the
former in a wing-masted trimaran, the latter in a catamaran.
After watching Oracle outperform Alinghi during the irst
leg of the best of three races, Ross turned to others in theteam and said: “Better polish your CVs, it’s all over.”
With Alinghi out of the 2013 event, Ross was looking to have
a break from the AC, but Coutts rang suggesting he help set
up the San Francisco event through the America’s Cup Event
Authority (ACEA).
With a Protocol in place, Ross then joined the America’s Cup
Race Management (ACRM) led by Iain Murry where he had a
bird’s eye view of the close-fought 2013 event. He still believes
TNZ could have won that event.
Seeking a change, Ross was invited by TNZ rules expert
Russell Green to assist as legal consultant for ETNZ’s 2017
challenge, a role he’s still fulilling today.
After the 2013 AC Ross completed a Master’s paper on
international shipwreck ownership, which then led to a PhD on
the AC Deed of Gift, which he recently completed, becoming
Doctor Ross.
Ross is a busy man. Besides being a trustee of the Trust
operating Half Moon Bay Marina, the Patron of the CYA and
co-owner of Rainbow, he owns and manages Elite Kitchens. He’s
also writing a book on the AC, which he promises, given his
research, will be very diferent to anything previously published.
And the future?
“Looking for the next hill to climb,” was his prompt reply.
Sounds like a plan, Hamish. BNZ“It was life-
changing
moment, but
it took a lot of
soul-searching
to decide.”BOATINGNZ.CO.NZPHOTOS COURTESY Hamish Ross , John Macfarlane, John Bertenshaw,
Stephanie Creagh Photography and BNZ archives.