It's still going to be multihulls

Ernesto is crafty. He announces his vision and enlists the support of every vested interest in America's Cup to discuss the Protocol of the Future.

We admired that (see previous post).

Fortunately, he invites the involvement of the New York Yacht Club (NYYC), without whom any AC discussion is irrelevant. NYYC agrees. Wouldn't you agree? Of course you would. This is their baby. NYYC adds huge cautionary remarks.

In his last paragraph, Ernesto subtly links future protocol discussions with the multihull competition. Do this, he says, or we race multihulls.

Wait a minute, says Tom Ehman (USA), spokesperson of BMW Oracle, forget the future. Think about now. We still have AC33 to deal with. So exactly what's it going to be? 90-foot boats? Multihulls? What?

Larry Ellison (USA), chief of BMW Oracle, following appeals by Tom Ehman and those who attended meetings with Alinghi this week, puts pen to paper and asks Ernesto, fairly and reasonably, the same questions.

Well, the reality is, unless Ernesto can pull an underwriting sponsor for AC33 out of the sailbag, it's going to be multihulls. He can't afford anything else.

Ernesto, probably, will wait until the last yawning moment, just before Judge Cahn's announcement of the new timetable, or immediately after, to confirm that it's all multihulls, all the way, and it's going to be in Valencia in 2009. And by the way, it's not my fault, he will say. I promised you the future. You couldn't make it happen. So we race multihulls. Don't blame me.

If somebody said, let's forget that, let's race the old Version 5 boats and have a great regatta (which actually is a fine idea), there's still that nagging problem for Ernesto, no sponsor.

So, build those multihulls.

P.S. Ernesto is getting hammered for proposing his Protocol of the Future. But how could that be worse than corrupting an old protocol to govern an America's Cup event it could never possibly support?

Something had to give.

The solid guarantee in all of this is NYYC's involvement, and the involvement of all previous trustees. All of us have to trust them to protect America's Cup. Even if some of us accept that a lot of what Ernesto says (about planning, sponsors, timetables, venues, costs) makes sense.

Like it or not.