America's Cup Defenders Emirates Team New Zealand have responded to yesterday's critical statements by Athena Racing and NYYC American Magic with a counter statement and the release of a draft version of the AC38 Protocol.
The team's statement reads:
The Defender has been working closely and positively with all teams on moving the America’s Cup to a new collaborative Partnership and structure to strengthen the future of the America’s Cup for the benefit of the event and all current and future teams.
PROTOCOL
In an unprecedented move, the Defender in conjunction with the Challenger of Record has been working with all teams on the development of the Protocol for the 38th America’s Cup over the past few months. This has resulted in the current Protocol incorporating many ideas and positions of the teams. As a result of the significant teams input the completion of the Protocol has been prolonged.
The latest version of the Protocol went back to the Challenger of Record Athena Racing, 10 days ago, prior to the announcement of Naples. The Defender has not had any feedback back from the Challenger of Record on the latest version other than acknowledgement it had been well received by the teams.
However, the Defender now feels due to the unreasonable allegations that have been levelled at it by Athena Racing and American Magic, that it is appropriate to publicly release the latest draft version of the 38th America’s Cup Protocol today as an illustration of complete transparency.
VENUE & HOST VENUE AGREEMENT
It is the responsibility of the Defender and has been an obligation of an agreement with the Challenger of Record, to secure the Host Venue by June 19th 2025 so all teams have clarity on one of the most important foundations of any America’s Cup.
Ahead of time, the teams now have that knowledge and understanding with the exciting announcement of Naples, Italy in 2027.
In contrast to the statement by Athena Racing, all teams have already been offered full access and transparency to the Host Venue Agreement (HVA), which was signed just last week, upon their signing of a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). Such a requirement is standard practice in with any contract that contains commercial sensitivities.
The Defender is yet to receive the returned NDA’s from Athena Racing as Challenger of Record.
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I check-in with Tudor Team Alinghi’s director for technical and sailing, New Zealand America’s Cup veteran Dave Endean – the man in charge of making sure that in AC38 the Swiss syndicate improves on its somewhat lacklustre performance in the last Cup in Barcelona.
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