Tom Ehman Responds: RNZYS — “Worst Trustee in the History of the Cup”

It would be an understatement to say people have opinions about the America’s Cup. One important opinion about the Cup is from San Francisco resident and St. Francis YC member Tom Ehman, who was involved in the Cup from 1980 and served as executive director of the SDYC and GGYC Cups. He has intimate knowledge of the Deed and the many legal challenges that have arisen over time. In 2013, he was spokesperson for Larry Ellison’s victorious 2013 Cup on San Francisco Bay. You may still have an America’s Cup pin from one of the many talks he did at local yacht clubs. Following John Sweeney’s filing with the New York attorney general, Ehman issued this statement this past weekend on his Sailing Illustrated Facebook page:

STATEMENT

Further to John Sweeney’s complaint filed with the Charities Bureau of the NY State Attorney General, here is the key phrase in the America’s Cup Deed of Gift:

“It is distinctly understood that the Cup is to be the property of the Club subject to the provisions of this deed, and not the property of the owner or owners of any vessel winning a match.”

In clear violation of the Deed of Gift and NY State law, the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron have delegated their trustee duties and responsibilities — hence “ownership” of the Cup — to their winning team, Emirates Team New Zealand. In turn, ETNZ have “sold” the Cup to a new corporation, America’s Cup Properties (ACP), which by their own admission was established for the express purpose of commercially exploiting the America’s Cup, again, clearly contravening the Deed.

As I have been saying for over a year, RNZYS is without doubt the worst trustee in the history of the Cup. The powers that be in NY State should remove RNZYS as the Trustee, and return the Cup and trusteeship to the original trustee, New York Yacht Club, so that the America’s Cup is restored in strict compliance with the Deed of Gift.

Thomas F. Ehman Jr.
San Francisco, 28 March, 2026

You may have your own opinion, but the one that really matters is that of the New York attorney general, who has assigned case number 26-020937 to Sweeney’s complaint against RNZYS. Like us, we think many sailors are feeling the loss of the Cup as a part of the sailing community. Many feel it’s been caught up in the financialization of everything, where the Cup has just become another “asset” to be monetized. Like the youth sports industry, family farms or the “wedding industrial complex,” the America’s Cup has shifted away from tradition to become another sports spectacle where success is measured in dollars rather than sailing skills.

There are arguments to be made around any of these feelings. Is the tradition of the Cup sailing or technical innovation? Does it matter if there are sailors on board powering winches or are batteries OK? Would it be OK to have a robot ride a horse in the Kentucky Derby? Does the horse win or the jockey? We listen to and understand many of the perspectives, but at the end of the day, we feel a loss of something that was meaningful to us. It may be generational nostalgia that has too strong an attachment to the past, though it truly connects to the sailing we think most sailors still enjoy every day on San Francisco Bay.

The loss of sailing and sailors from the Cup is nothing against foiling. We’ve loved seeing the dynamism brought to the Bay with kite-foiling, wing-foiling and even SailGP foiling. That’s an aspect of the eclectic world of sailing, but to us, it’s nothing to do with sailing in the America’s Cup.

Regardless of our opinions, the America’s Cup Deed of Gift, written in 1857, remains as controversial as our Constitution, written in 1787. Collective decision-making is messy. So the debate continues, and at its foundation, we see a debate of the Cup as an industry versus the Cup as a sailing tradition. We like sailing for all the reasons we continue to sail regularly. We’ve made our living in sailing, but if the only reason to be in sailing is to “maximize shareholder value” we think sailing loses something.

The 2003 Moet Cup on San Francisco Bay, held between Larry Ellison and Ernesto Bertarelli in their IACC boats, was a sailing event loved by sailors. It’s interesting to read some of the comments from Ellison and Bertarelli from that era. You can see some pre-race comments here and a view of the racing here. Those were “the good old days” of racing sailboats with sailors on board the IACC boats. (By the way, Brad Webb’s USA76, which has been chartering for years out of Pier 39, is currently for sale at Rubicon Yachts.)

Tom Ehman went on to clarify some additional comments. One commenter asked what the difference is between the America’s Cup Properties formed by the NYYC in 1983 after they lost the Cup and the new ACPI currently managing the Cup. Ehman responded, “ACPI was formed by NYYC and RPYC after RPYC won the Cup in 1983. It is a perpetual not-for-profit corporation to hold the Cup name, image and likeness, and related IP rights, in accordance with a ‘Pre-Incorporation Agreement’ set forth by NYYC shortly after the 1983 Cup. Every winning Club since 1983 has been required to sign an ‘Assignment and Acceptance’ agreement as set forth in the Deed of Gift, guaranteeing that the Cup would be run in accordance with the Deed, ACPI, etc. In short, ACPI transfers the IP rights with the physical possession of the Cup to the winning club. Yes, I ‘ran’ ACPI as head of ACOC (SDYC’s org cte), and then again for GGYC. There’s not much to it aside from annual corp filing fees and tax returns, as well as preparing and executing licensing agreements from ACPI with the various competing clubs and teams in a given Cup cycle. ACP, on the other hand, is a corp recently formed by the representative teams of the Defender, Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron (RNZYS), and the Challenger of Record, Royal Yacht Squadron (GBR), for the stated (by them) purpose of managing all aspects of 38th America’s Cup AND BEYOND (emphasis added — a clear violation of the Deed and NY Trust law). ACP is run BY THE TEAMS (not the Clubs, yet another clear violation of the Deed) for the development and exploitation of AC commercial rights, etc. I, and many others, assert that ACP is in and of itself clearly contrary to the Deed of Gift and NY Trust law. It remains to be seen whether the NY State attorney general will take up the related complaint by John Sweeney, and whether the matter ends up in the NY courts.”

Another commenter suggested all this could be set aside because of the “mutual consent” phrase in the deed, to which Ehman responded, “Sorry, but your assertion is false. Only ‘conditions of the match’ may be agreed by mutual consent. Not amendments to the Deed. Yours is a common misunderstanding.”

The ball is in the New York attorney general’s court. It will be interesting to see how RNZYS responds and where it goes from here. Now that this has been cleared up, it’s time to go sailing.