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Swiss skew poll results

Posted 3 months, 19 days ago

Swiss skew poll results
Apparently the America’s Cup defender Alinghi felt sufficiently threatened by last week’s Scuttlebutt poll regarding a Deed of Gift interpretation, that they initiated an email campaign to skew the results in their favor. Surely, they are not the first to influence a survey, however, it was gutsy for the source of the email to be Alinghi’s club, the Societe Nautique de Geneve. Here are some of the lowlights:* They told their members how to vote, not to review the information.* They told their members that the issue contradicts the rule from previous events, without telling them that this next event is bound by the Deed of Gift, wherein previous events could modify the Deed of Gift.* They told their members that Scuttlebutt had organized the survey to prove that its readers support the idea that Alinghi must build the whole boat in Switzerland, which if true, would damage their defense.It is this last point that really shook the hallways of Scuttlebutt World Headquarters. Sadly, the Swiss find Scuttlebutt as being a propaganda tool of the BMW Oracle Racing campaign. Nothing could be further from the truth, and we take offense for being blamed for their problems. Interestingly, this issue regarding boat construction got started in Seahorse magazine by columnist Paul Cayard, who is the Sports Director for the Desafio Espanol team. Remember them? They are the Spanish syndicate that Alinghi had enlisted as their Challenger of Record to present the much disputed Protocol for the 33rd event, and the team the courts later rejected for not fulfilling the terms of the Deed of Gift. Guess it is true… what comes around, goes around. SNG email: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/news/08/0509 Poll results: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/polls/08/0505 Full Story »

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