Editorial Andrew Hurst It’s about the occasion not the sailing
All those witches and sorcerers trying to do good to the America’s Cup are instead slowly killing her. Golden Gate Yacht Club and their Oracle Team USA are great sailors but hopeless guards of the Myth. They managed to kill the style and elegance which prevailed for decades, those unique aspects of the America’s Cup
which was our main focus at Louis Vuitton for 30 years. They put an end to the exclusive positioning of THE Cup. They have betrayed the long saga of incredible personalities who made the Cup so special. And they are now organising a one-design catamaran contest with no style. What we have now is a vulgar beach event smelling of sunscreen and french fries. This is definitely NOT the Cup. – Bruno Troublé, Louis Vuitton Cup manager
The AC48 is an interesting boat but registration for the Cup now costs more than the boats. I love the America’s Cup. I have won it and it will be part of me for ever. Patrizio Bertelli spent several tens of millions of euros developing a new boat and suddenly he is told he did it for nothing. Today I am happy I don’t find myself in Patrizio’s place.
– Ernesto Bertarelli, two-time America’s Cup winner
How did that happen? Those suggestions we made a few months back to use the J Class for the next America’s Cup are no longer funny. There are indeed more J Class competing this year than entries to the Cup… as was the case in 2013. Right now surviving syndicate heads talk about continuity, looking forward to ‘future’ Cups where the same boats are used year after year; one-designs with some variance (currently) allowed in foils and their control.
At the same time, however, it would be strange if many of the excellent people recruited to large and expensive AC62 technical teams are not getting a little apprehensive… How many world-class experts does it take to refine a couple of foils? Not much guaranteed continuity there.
And what about all that infrastructure that determined challengers have worked so hard to fund? An AC48 looks great fun but it is hardly a Maxi in terms of presence. And what if, say, a couple of new and well-funded groups want to enter the game post-2017 on condition that a new class is used. What if they are the only challengers? What if a new team jumps the queue as the winner crosses the line in 2017, getting in there as theChallenger? Remember some of those big Cup teams in New Zealand in 2003, teams like OneWorld funded by a brief spike in technology companies. Teams come and go in the Cup so the fact that some – not all – of today’s teams agree on a longterm plan means zilch.
That is the unique draw of the Cup. It is winner-takes-all, the trophy, the event, the rules of engagement. To drive out one, potentially two, of the Cup’s most loyal and committed teams in Luna Rossa and Emirates Team New Zealand is frankly immensely stupid. This could get really, really messy. And for what?
Misguided
There have been two outstanding Cups in the modern era, Fremantle 1987 and Valencia 2007. The two events in the early 2000s in Auckland were terrific, but they were too far from the world’s biggest economies to make much more than a local impact. Fremantle managed to overcome its geographic remoteness due to the one-off nature of the first defeated Defender in Cup history returning to put things right. Also the sailing was exceptional and TV was taking its first nibbles.
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These days even the whales are foiling… Having adopted whale tubercles on his rudders, it is only a matter of time before Paul Bieker is out there measuring up Mother Nature’s latest ideas
But the correct reference for wannabe Cup organisers is still Valencia 2007. And the facts are interesting… The winds in Valencia did not blow hard. Nor did the seas amount to much. The boats were super-slow by contemporary standards and required large crews to operate them. Much of the racing was one-sided (aside from the Match). And there was little by way of overtaking. But the event was a stunning success with substantial B2B entertaining, much of which was properly costed and charged for. Nothing like that has happened in the Cup before or since. So why was Valencia such a success, in spite of lacking sailing ‘excitement’? The event had presence. Serious, grown- up, enduring presence. It was a very cool thing to which to be invited. The yachts looked mighty. The crews looked scary-tough. The region embraced the event. The bases were impressive (most remain so today) and redolent of a serious sporting event. Valencia is easily accessible to the world’s largest commercial market… and hundreds of millions of citizens. In fact, Valencia and the ACC V5.0 class were pretty much everything that Bermuda and cool but visually lightweight AC48s sadly will never be. What has been overlooked in planning and revising AC35? That the America’s Cup is about the occasion… not the sailing.q
It’s remarkable how each succeeding holder of the America’s Cup has made the previous
holders look good – Steve ‘Cogito’ Clarke
This situation makes my blood boil. The America’s Cup
should be sailed in a yacht worthy of its history, not some
silly little boat – Tony Castro
What you are doing to the Cup is nothing short
of a disgrace – Bob Fisher
It’s desperately sad, Oracle USA has lost its sugar daddy’s open purse
Remaining Cup Challengers need to seek out therapists for those in abusive
relationships – Cory Friedman
I just close my eyes – Alvimedica skipper Charlie Enright deals with fear in the Southern Ocean
CAM KNOWS COOL The O’pen BIC events are the coolest thing ever. If every kid got the chance to do one the entire planet would
be so improved – Cam Lewis
It means I’ll never have – Daniel Charles, Scuttlebutt
to work again – Don McLean is asked about the meaning behind American Pie
Seahorse magazine and our associate raceboatsonlybrokerage site are both at:
seahorsemagazine.com The editor is contactable by email at:
andrew@seahorse.co.uk
SEAHORSE 9
TOM ERLE
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