Nobody has noticed this.
It’s been going on for a while now, no, really, for some time.
It’s not about the New York Courts.
It’s not about Ernesto Bertarelli (SUI), the Prince of Alinghi, head of the America’s Cup sailing team of the cold water sailing club Société Nautique de Genève (SNG).
It’s not about His Excellency the Honorable Voicebox, Fred Meyer, Vice Commodore and Yammerer-in-Chief of SNG. (It should be noted that Commodore Meyer cheerfully takes the heat for his Commodore, Pierre-Yves Firmenich, a gentleman of the old order who tends to his fragrance business and adopts a profile approximating that of the water level of Lake Geneva.)
It’s not about Larry Ellison (USA), founder of BMWOracle, the biblical Lot of the sailing world, an individual who can suffer multiple afflictions (including Ernesto, SNG, and the Courts of New York) and still get up in the morning, dress, organize his life, and go to work to brilliantly and successfully guide the global corporation he created from scratch, an organization that virtually defined the database software industry. Could you do that?
It’s not about Marcus Young (USA), apparently a very nice man, who works in the public relations industry, whom virtually nobody has ever met, who adopts a profile approximating that of Pierre-Yves Firmenich (actually lower, on San Francisco Bay), and is known to the America’s Cup community by his signature on beautifully phrased, coolly rational, and utterly logical letters to his Swiss counterpart (well, counterpart but one) HEHV Meyer, YIC.
This amazingness, frankly, is not even about Sir Russell Coutts (NZL), chief executive of BMWOracle, whose appellation of knighthood was restored to him and scores of other extraordinary Kiwis by the new Prime Minister John Key, just recently.
It’s not about Brad Butterworth (NZL), for crying out loud, the canny sailor we love to hate, who not only is Coutts’s great friend and counterpart at Alinghi, but who, despite what everyone says back home, is still a great Kiwi, a great sailor, and a genius who comes from the Waikato, after all. And all of us appreciate that.
It’s not even about the Cold Shudder of Lawyers, all of whom are doing very well out of the America’s Cup.
Actually, it is about all these characters, all of whom actually command America’s Cup, all of whom like to think they control the America’s Cup, but . . .
THE SAD FACT IS, NONE OF THESE PEOPLE ARE TALKING TO EACH OTHER!
America’s Cup has become such a casino that nobody knows how to talk to anyone, anymore.
Nobody knows how to address anyone in civil terms. Nobody even wants to talk to anybody else, anyway, about anything under the sun whatsoever, especially America's Cup 33.
People have forgotten how to talk to other people, even if they wanted to do that, which they don’t, and if they did, they'd call the lawyers. Which is ridiculous.
It’s literally Alice in Wonderland. Toad of Toad Hall. Craziland.
We don’t know anything more than you know, and we know that you know nothing. But we do know that everyone on the planet hates what is happening to America’s Cup, with a passion, including you.
We wish sanity would prevail.
Which includes a lot of great sailors and great pontificators, on both sides of the issue, and on both teams.
Which includes us.
Anyway.
In our view, there are three ways to move forward:
(1) Ernesto and Larry -- or Larry and Ernesto -- personally and exclusively have the power to get together and agree on the outcome – a victor who can win fairly – and then decide what that actually means. Absolutely, they can.
(2) Then, they can adjudicate the details between themselves, by themselves, leaving the panjandrum of fakirs of both teams behind, all of whom can take their coffee and their baco-cheese panini elsewhere.
(3) When Larry and Ernesto ultimately come to terms, they can tell the world that the race is set, where it is will be staged, what the competing vessels must adhere to and not exceed, and when everyone has to get together to make the contest happen, including all of us who are sitting on the sidelines railing about everything about AC33 and about everything else under the sun, including hemispheric venues in nasty (and pretty) places.
Larry and Ernesto -- or Ernesto and Larry -- can make this happen by lunchtime.
Let’s encourage this.
Please.
3 comments:
I'm with Fernando, except lets send in a SEAL team steal the cup, melt it and start from scratch. Neither Larry or Ernesto are going to get any richer from the Cup so lets lets put some Common Sense back into what we love as sailors.
ERACER
Well finally the cup will be back on the water, ans this is the most imortant. And this is also the reason the swiss team fought hard, to go back and fight on the water. There will be a winner, which might finally not be the final winner, but well the sailing part of the AC will have a winner at least. Now it is surprising to see the difference of behavior between the two superrichs. One is sitting in his yacht and will be watching and will be watching the races with one of the best sailor on his side (why not on the boat???), while the other one is all excited about finally racing. And for me this shows clearly and finally where the interests of each one are. One is only interested by the victory, no matter the price (and no matter that it kicked out 18 other teams), and the other one just want to defends himself on the water, no matter the final decision of the court. And for me this makes a good point for Ernesto (but of course does not transform him into an angel either)
Finally, one last detail.
What makes the AC so specific is exactly this mix of race and lawyer fights, this is the myth of this race, distinguishing it from the others. There has already been such conflicts although none when to such extremes, but on the other side none went to such extreme boats neither.
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