Part I: What Ernesto did, and didn't do

Ernesto Bertarelli (SUI) had big ideas for America's Cup 33.

A seasoned competitor, he personally experienced the trials and torments of two America's Cup campaigns, and he triumphed, twice.

As he looked at AC33, he saw a different competition.

First (and not necessarily in this order, because nobody but Ernesto knows Ernesto's mind), he envisioned bigger boats, ninety-foot boats, eleven feet longer than Version 5 boats, with huge rigs and sails; as Brad Butterworth (NZL) later said, boats that evoked the spirit of the old J Class yachts of yesteryear.

Second, Ernesto decided he didn't want to build two of them. Obviously he felt the cost impacts of two vessels, two crews, and two huge overheads. Building two boats makes no sense, he says. It's insane. Let's build one boat, race one boat, and win with one boat. After all, that's what they used to do in America's Cup; that's what the great sailing event was all about. Perhaps, if you race Formula One cars, you need a stable of race cars. But this is sailing. One boat should be good enough -- so long as you build the right boat and sail it the right way.

Third, Ernesto envisioned a different kind of series. Not a traditional defender-challenger series, defined by two camps -- one the defender, and a circus of other boats, fighting it out among themselves for the right to sail against the former victor, waiting patiently in the shallows. Instead, he saw an open preliminary, like World Cup rugby. Or Wimbledon tennis. Yes, there's last year's winner, ostensibly the defender. And yes, there is a flurry of challengers. But it's going to be different this time; everyone starts out the same. The playing field is totally leveled. Everyone races together. And the last two boats remaining fight it out for the America's Cup. We, as Alinghi, might be part of that; we might not. But all of us sail equally; may the best boat win.

This bucks tradition, and certainly it's a different concept. But is it irrational, crazy, insane, draconian? Not at all. It's just a different concept. And it might even be a reasonable concept given today's world and the pressures on teams, syndicates and sponsors. Yacht racing is not getting less expensive; it's getting more expensive. If costs can be controlled without destroying the thrill and excitement and challenge of America's Cup racing -- and we add to that the excitement of huge boats competing in one, amazing, knock-down, drag out preliminary that leads to the America's Cup final -- well, maybe we will achieve something great.

Fourth, Ernesto decided, let's have a Spanish challenger of record. This is a big emotional, tactical and competitive issue, since the challenger, traditionally, has considerable power and influence over the event. But it would be great for my organization, says Ernesto, and certainly great for Valencia and Spain, our AC32 hosts, to be the city and nation of the challenger of record. In fact, it would help cement Valencia's involvement in AC33 and be a tribute of sorts to Spain. It would also make our lives a lot easier. Better than dealing with an aggressive challenger who might corrupt our concept, we have an elegant solution that makes us friends in Spain.

Fifth -- and here, we might add, Ernesto gets inexplicable, and as a result, in the perceptions of many people, logic, fairness and honor take a vacation -- he decides to totally manage the new event. Let's tighten the protocol, he says. Let's make sure we control everything -- the design concept, the protocol for racing, the management of rules and protests, the race committee, adjudication, everything. We manage all of this. We don't have the challengers managing anything. Remember, we changed the fundamental concept of America's Cup and we can't expect anyone to see it our way. If the challengers are part of it, we can be sure they will destroy the concept, and we'll be back to square one in a contest we don't want.

Now, that's what Ernesto did, basically, more or less, give or take.

He definitively broke with tradition and created a different concept for the event.

At the very least, it should be something to consider. Whatever the motivation, it's a different way of looking at America's Cup; maybe it's even an improvement, one that's right for this century.

Anyway, that's what Ernesto did.

What he didn't do, was sell it.

Ernesto's radical new concept was wrapped in the argot of the legal document known as the Protocol for the 33rd Edition of the America's Cup.

It was casually, officiously and arrogantly thrown in the face of the America's Cup community at yet another pompous, one-sided Valencia press conference, without any kind of pre-amble, pre-sell, discussion, presentation, articulation, introduction, explanation, elucidation or celebration of what, in fact, might actually be a reasonable, although controversial, concept.

Ernesto didn't articulate anything, and perhaps couldn't. His lawyers only did lawyerly things. Brad Butterworth, a good lad from the Waikato, did his best, but he didn't explain the grand design either. Nobody did.

As a result, everyone in the America's Cup community became confused, frustrated, angry, fearful, worried, and majorly concerned in a major way.

And when the dust settles, and everyone reads and finally digests the protocol, they go bats**t. Some more than others.

The tragedy isn't that Ernesto came up with a new concept.

But he didn't explain it.

What actually happened is that everyone evaluated the new concept for the America's Cup by the old rules of the America's Cup.

And by the old rules, the new concept assuredly fails.

Ernesto might have pulled the cat out of the coals, but as the weeks rolled by, he became even more arrogant, more defensive and more aggressive in his remarks.

What the world has been watching -- Ernesto among them -- is a new concept sailing into the headwind of an old protocol, the venerable Deed of Gift itself.

Now the concept is languishing in the New York Supreme Court, where, on October 22, it will be adjudicated by the rules it was intended to replace.

Ernesto may be a smart man. But nobody I know has ever made, unnecessarily, a bigger blunder.

On Friday, look for Part II:
What Ernesto must do now.