Defenders Oracle Team USA will defiantly accept their penalty for cheating after being docked two points ahead of their America's Cup match against Team New Zealand.
Two crew members have been banned for part or all of the best-of-17 match scheduled to start in San Francisco on Saturday while Oracle have also been fined $US250,000. ($A277,000) The penalty was handed down by an international jury, which deemed Oracle had made illegal modifications to the AC45 catamarans used in the America's Cup World Series.
It means the defenders will need to win 11 races in this month's match if they are to defend the America's Cup, while Team NZ still require nine wins.
Experienced Oracle wing trimmer Dirk de Ridder of the Netherlands has been banned from taking any part in the match, while their New Zealand grinder Matt Mitchell has been banned for four races.
Mitchell, 41, was a grinder for Team New Zealand on their 2000 and 2003 campaigns before joining Alinghi for the successful 2007 defence of the America's Cup in Valencia.
Two shore crew, Andy Walker, a New Zealander, and Australian Bryce Ruthenberg were banned from taking any part in the regatta.
Oracle chief executive Russell Coutts admitted last month that someone within the syndicate illegally placed weight in the bows of all three of their prototype 45-foot boats without permission of the measurement committee.
Oracle forfeited their victories in four world series regattas and the two overall season championships.
The regattas were used as a warmup to the America's Cup which is raced in bigger AC72 boats.
Coutts said in a statement that only a handful of OTUSA's 130-strong team were involved in the modifications which were carried out without the knowledge of management.
"While we disagree with the unprecedented penalties imposed by the jury, we have no choice but to make the necessary changes to personnel on our race boat and do our best to use the next four days for the new team to practise."
The international jury said in a statement it didn't accept the OTUSA claim that the actions were those of a small number of "misguided employees".
"Most of those involved are experienced professional sailors or boat builders," the jury said.
"The stark reality is a series of breaches occurred over a period of time which clearly demonstrated that their systems were not adequate or robust as demonstrated by multiple breaches at multiple events."
The jury said it didn't impose stiffer penalties because it wanted the America's Cup decided on the water rather than the courtroom.
Measurement committee chairman Nick Nicholson strongly criticised Oracle in a submission to the jury.
"I felt old, used and stupid ... our trust in the team had been betrayed, trust had been abused. If we can't deal in an atmosphere of a certain amount of trust, we simply cannot do our job."
Oracle's backup skipper Ben Ainslie, a four-time Olympic gold medallist and helmsman of one of the yachts involved in the scandal, told the jury he was "surprised, disappointed, disgusted and angry at what had happened".
Half of the fine will go to the Andrew Simpson Foundation, established for the British sailor killed in the capsize of the Swedish boat Artemis in May, and the other half will go to a charity to be nominated by the mayor of San Francisco.
