Everyone is also searching for the next missive, the one that flies missile-like into the online world to be tapped by an online reporter and instantly disseminated to the world at large.
Perhaps these are incoming.
All this is the mating dance of America's Cup titans -- America's Cup 33 Challenger of Record, Commodore Marcus Young of Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC), and the AC33 Defender, Commodore Pierre-Yves Firmenich of Société Nautique de Genève (SNG).
The subject at hand: What on earth -- or at sea -- will happen in AC33?
Specifically, will there be a multi-challenger event, involving teams from around the world?
Or will there be a multi-hull event, involving Alinghi (SUI) and BMWOracle (USA)?
If you think that words don't matter, troll the missives.
GGYC has reaffirmed its commitment to a multi-challenger event, but wishes to "discuss ideas to achieving mutual consent".
SNG, through Vice-Commodore Fred Meyer, who -- consistent with his personal tradition -- uses subtle pyrotechnics, actually verbal sleight of hand, to dissemble the determinations of the New York Court, asserts that "mutual consent" should be discussed.
Now, "mutual consent" is the new "having".
If you are wondering what it actually means, you are not alone.
Both of the parties are dancing very gingerly around this litmus term.
No-one is saying what they will be discussing when they step into a conference room somewhere, sometime soon, probably in Geneva.
Think about this.
If you are Ernesto, you must sponsor an America's Cup defense. But you have no UBS -- the mega-Swiss bank is now under attack by authorities in the United States. You have no Louis Vuitton -- the long-time AC sponsor and provider of funds for the preliminary events of America's Cup has left the stage, creating its own event for America's Cup teams and boats in New Zealand.
You also have declining credibility because of the departure of both landmark sponsors, no other sponsors on the horizon, and an imperfect and, frankly, tumultuous relationship with the governments of Valencia and Spain.
As all of us know -- nobody more than Ernesto Bertarelli's captive management organization ACM -- this isn't exactly the right time to bring newcomers or new sponsors into America's Cup.
So, if you are Ernesto, will you enthusiastically agree to stage a multi-month, multi-year, multi-challenger event?
We don't think so.
Yes, billionaires like Ernesto and Larry have resources. But yes, even billionaires have their limits.
The best we can expect from the Swiss Billionaire, pundits say, is a handy dandy three-day Deed of Gift event, where Ernesto defends against Larry's raptor trimaran by sailing ... well ... the amazing Swiss Myth, a vessel of absolutely pluperfect design and proportions that nobody has ever seen, not even spies.
But is this what Larry wants? Even after building a real, photographed, and competitively viable $20 million trimaran contender?
No, Larry wants a multi-challenger event. Up front, plain and simple.
He wants GGYC to achieve an agreement with the Swiss defender (SNG) to allow New Zealand, Italy, France, Great Britain, South Africa, China, and every other maritime nation under the sun -- or at least off an arm of the sea -- to participate and contest the opportunity to win America's Cup 33.
Despite the April dancing, that's a pretty solid declaration from the challenger of record for the next America's Cup event.
That is not a declaration that the Swiss defender has made since his puppet yacht club challenger was removed by the Courts of New York.
Nor is it, we believe, a declaration he is ever likely to make.
1 comment:
I have strong doubts that Larry really wants a multi-challenger event. After all the money he spent, he must be VERY happy not to have any competing challenger. After all, he lost bitterly on the water in Valencia.. I don't think he built his dogzilla just to bluff.
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