Dispatches March 10 The Cup is back home
The Cup is back home
After a 15-year absence, the America's Cup, yacht racing's most prestigious prize, has come home to the United States. Victory for the U.S. syndicate, BMW Oracle Racing, was swift and decisive - over almost before it began. Software billionaire Larry Ellison's massive trimaran, USA-17, needed only two races to reclaim the silver ewer that was first awarded to the schooner America in 1851. So in case you missed it here's a recap.
Skippered by Australian James Spithill, USA-17 easily outran the catamaran that biotech billionaire and Alinghi syndicate head Ernesto Bertarelli was helming himself in his defense for the Société Nautique de Genève. The racing took place Feb. 12-14 off Valencia, Spain.
The 33rd Cup competition began with two years of bitter litigation in New York State Supreme Court. The animosity continued to the end, culminating in a mutiny of sorts aboard the committee boat when the principal race officer tried to start the second and final race. (Click here for a roundup of the legal wrangling.)
Watch Race 1 highlights above.
Ellison's heavier, stronger trimaran sported a rigid wing for a sail, which propelled USA-17 to victory by huge margins over Bertarelli's Alinghi 5, which carried a rig of traditional soft sails. Ellison's wing was so powerful that during the downwind leg of the first race - a 40-mile course comprising 20-mile upwind and downwind legs - BOR showed speeds of 27 knots in around 8 knots of breeze. The pattern held during the second race - a triangular course consisting of a 13-mile beat to windward followed by two 13-mile reaches - when the U.S. boat was clocked at more than 33 knots on a broad reach.
In both races, Alinghi was penalized before the start and had to complete a penalty turn. In each race, the Swiss grabbed the lead on the first leg. In the first, Spithill ran over the start line before the gun, had to claw his way back to restart and then found himself stalled. But halfway up the first leg, he was back in command and never lost the lead. He finished 1,531 yards ahead of Alinghi at the end of the downwind run. In the second race, Alinghi caught the shifting wind at the start and was almost to the windward mark when Spithill slid USA-17 between Alinghi 5 and the mark boat, rounding ahead by 24 seconds. The Americans then stretched it out on both reaching legs, winning by 5 minutes, 26 seconds after the Swiss completed their penalty turn.
The mutiny
The second race nearly didn't start because the Alinghi representatives aboard the committee boat did not agree with principal race officer Harold Bennett of New Zealand. The Swiss syndicate believed the waves were too high to race - more than 1 meter. Bennett didn't see it that way.
With just minutes to go before an automatic 4:30 p.m. cancellation for the day, Bennett saw that the wind was filling in and racing could start. He gave the order, but the Alinghi reps refused to carry out their assignments - to work the flags and signals. Bennett recruited BOR's Tom Ehman and the committee boat driver, who is a registered international umpire, to work the flags.
"It was a perfect breeze," Bennett said later, claiming he had never heard of a race committee at any regatta deciding they wanted to prevent a race from being run.
Ehman called it "the most disgraceful behavior I have ever encountered."
Watch Race 2 highlights above.
In an open letter dated Feb. 25 Société Nautique de Genève's vice commodore Fred Meyer says the race was launched in improper conditions and questions the validity of the second race, according to a story on SailWorld.com.
"The three SNG Race Committee members however maintain that it was unreasonable, unnecessary and improper to launch the race at that moment. From a rules point of view, it is not even clear whether there was truly a race or not on that day," he writes.
In a letter dated March 5, however, Meyer writes to BMW Oracle suggesting that "GGYC agree to end all litigation concerning the 33rd America's Cup and all prior Cups." The American syndicate had yet to respond.
The Cup's next stop?
So where does the America's Cup go from here? Ellison sailed under the burgee of San Francisco's Golden Gate Yacht Club, and people in the City by the Bay would love to see it raced there.
Watch the America's Cup victory tour from BMW Oracle above.Where else? Ellison has reportedly just bought Astors' Beechwood mansion in Newport, R.I., and the state has already begun campaigning to bring back the Cup. Or the racing could return to Spain, where the Valencia winds are surer, at least in the summer, and the infrastructure is already in place.
See the April isue of Soundings for more.
Stories in this issue:
Miami boat show - bringing back the heat
On Powerboats Online
Keep the water on the outside
The Cup is back home