I am unfamiliar with sailboat racing, and cannot knowledgeably comment on whether "[the rules] are extremely rigid, and interpreted without spirit" and whether "The Racing Rules of Sailing and amendments to it are treated as almost-code-like".
But I can say that the 1988 America's cup does not support either of those points.
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Background:
First of all, the opinion of the appellate court is better written and clearer than the Wikipedia article: https://nycourts.gov/reporter/archives/mercury_sandiego.htm I'm going to be quoting it a lot because it says things more plainly and authoritatively than I could.
"The America's Cup, a silver cup trophy, is the corpus of a charitable trust created in the 19th century under the laws of New York." Such a charitable trust is governed by a "Deed of Gift" written by those who gave the cup to the trust. "[George] Schuyler executed [wrote/signed] the present Deed of Gift in 1887, donating the Cup to the New York Yacht Club".
The gist of the deed is that one yacht club can challenge the current holder of the cup to a race to win the cup (the race is 10 months after the challenge is issued); the two clubs are free to agree to whatever rules they want, but if they fail to agree then the deed gives some fallback rules. One of the rules that the 1887 deed gave is that for single-mast vessels the load water-line length must be between 65 and 90 feet. However, "In 1956 the New York Yacht Club obtained a court order amending the Deed of Gift to reduce the minimum load water-line length to its present 44 feet". For context, the America, the ship for which the cup was named, was 89ft 10in.
From 1956 until 1987 all challengers agreed to a lower maximum length than that 90ft limit, because even though longer boats were faster, they were more expensive.
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Why I don't believe that this supports your points:
- Because the issue was about the Deed of Gift, not The Racing Rules of Sailing, this was decided by the NY courts, not by the International Yacht Racing Union (IYRU).
- Because reasons ("see, e.g., Crouch v National Assn. For Stock Car Auto Racing, 845 F2d 397, 403; Finley & Co. v Kuhn, 569 F2d 527, 539") the court specifically did not interpret The Racing Rules of Sailing, and just interpreted the deed. If Mercury Bay wanted The Racing Rules of Sailing to come into it, they should have brought it to the IYRU--which they totally could have done--and not to the NY Supreme Court.
- The discussion in the decision of the court by word-count I would say is 90% about about the spirit and intent of the deed and what the author intended, and 10% about rigid textual interpretation.
But I can say that the 1988 America's cup does not support either of those points.
----
Background:
First of all, the opinion of the appellate court is better written and clearer than the Wikipedia article: https://nycourts.gov/reporter/archives/mercury_sandiego.htm I'm going to be quoting it a lot because it says things more plainly and authoritatively than I could.
"The America's Cup, a silver cup trophy, is the corpus of a charitable trust created in the 19th century under the laws of New York." Such a charitable trust is governed by a "Deed of Gift" written by those who gave the cup to the trust. "[George] Schuyler executed [wrote/signed] the present Deed of Gift in 1887, donating the Cup to the New York Yacht Club".
The gist of the deed is that one yacht club can challenge the current holder of the cup to a race to win the cup (the race is 10 months after the challenge is issued); the two clubs are free to agree to whatever rules they want, but if they fail to agree then the deed gives some fallback rules. One of the rules that the 1887 deed gave is that for single-mast vessels the load water-line length must be between 65 and 90 feet. However, "In 1956 the New York Yacht Club obtained a court order amending the Deed of Gift to reduce the minimum load water-line length to its present 44 feet". For context, the America, the ship for which the cup was named, was 89ft 10in.
From 1956 until 1987 all challengers agreed to a lower maximum length than that 90ft limit, because even though longer boats were faster, they were more expensive.
----
Why I don't believe that this supports your points:
- Because the issue was about the Deed of Gift, not The Racing Rules of Sailing, this was decided by the NY courts, not by the International Yacht Racing Union (IYRU).
- Because reasons ("see, e.g., Crouch v National Assn. For Stock Car Auto Racing, 845 F2d 397, 403; Finley & Co. v Kuhn, 569 F2d 527, 539") the court specifically did not interpret The Racing Rules of Sailing, and just interpreted the deed. If Mercury Bay wanted The Racing Rules of Sailing to come into it, they should have brought it to the IYRU--which they totally could have done--and not to the NY Supreme Court.
- The discussion in the decision of the court by word-count I would say is 90% about about the spirit and intent of the deed and what the author intended, and 10% about rigid textual interpretation.