Yes, but those rules existed before you decided to participate in that race/class. Although having said that, what is happening with all the debate about banana boards in the A-class cats...early on boats were built to exploit the old rules which were changed to ban them (tip separation rule introduced from memory). It has happened in the moths as well (dihedral foils were banned, albeit through an interpretation and clarification of existing rules).

Rudders haven't always been excluded from LWL measurement. I can point to one international keel boat class that I'm fairly familiar with that includes them. A quick look at the 12m class rules indicates they also include the rudder in waterline length. Although that is a very hard rule to interpret.

With modern rudders, yes they should be excluded because they don't offer any hull speed benefit, but that is up to the rules. A line in the sand has to be drawn somewhere.

Back to some points I made earlier, what is Alinghi supposed to do? They can't predict the future and BMWO are very unlikely to give them all the plans for USA...