Suddenly, it's noisy again in Switzerland

Over the past few days, there's been a lot of noise from the alpine nation.

Setting the stage, Justice Herman Cahn in New York hummed, or gently limned his decision into the ethos. Thank you, Justice Cahn.

And for a day or two, all was silent. Even Cory Freidman, Esq. (USA), that exceptional legal commentator, was silent.

But it was not to last.

Soon, the faxes and emails started flying.

And notably among the faxers and the statement-makers, Vice Commodore Fred Meyer (SUI) of Société Nautique de Genève (SNG), an otherwise highly partisan member of the Alinghi clan, wrote a surprisingly reasoned and sensible letter to the Commodore of the Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC), in the manner of good and reasonable yacht club officials, inviting GGYC to participate in discussions to resolve the date of the Deed of Gift challenge between Alinghi and BMW Oracle. Very nice.

But it was not to last.

In his next breath, the Vice Commodore fired off an extraordinarily intemperate, vituperative letter to Russell Coutts (NZL), Oracle CEO and skipper, declaiming Oracle's inability to compete on the water and protesting their penchant for action in the courts.

The Vice Commodore may seem like a major player in America's Cup, and maybe he is, but in his printed communications he sounds like just another Alinghi noisemaker. A lot like the Prince of Alinghi himself, but without the clout. A lot like the flacks at America's Cup Management -- but with more clout? It's hard to tell.

The sad fact is, he demonstrates an extraordinarily cheezy, mean-spirited ability to make the worst kinds of comments, for all the wrong reasons, at a time when he should be conciliatory and constructive.

After all, SNG was creamed in the Court of the Deed of Gift.

And let me point out, just for the record, that the people Commodore Meyer declaims, directly and indirectly, including Larry Ellison (USA), chief of Oracle, Russell Coutts, CEO, and the good people of GGYC have never, ever, ever uttered such childish, defensive thoughts as his.

So who are the sportsmen here?

Vice Commodore Meyer evidently has forgotten or conveniently overlooked the fact that the New York Court that protects the Deed of Gift said, in effect, to the Principality of Alinghi, "You are out of line. You are wrong. We listened to you. We waited upon you. But you are wrong. You are totally wrong. Drop it. Forget it. Move on."

Meyer inevitably must face that fact.

He must also face the fact that his posture, tone of voice and language are unseemly, unwelcome, undignified and unsportsmanlike.

We pray he behaves like the gentleman he is in his meeting with Russell Coutts and Tom Ehman (USA), head of external affairs for Oracle, tomorrow.

Huge, challenging issues for Grant Dalton, Team New Zealand

Grant Dalton (NZL) is a major player. He's a sailor (above, seen here, before sailing, during the Louis Vuitton semi-finals in Valencia in 2007). He has won and weathered round-the-world races. He resuscitated Team New Zealand from the ruptures, punctures and poor team management of his predecessors, including Kiwis who designed, built and launched the NZL boats that failed in 2003.

He has fronted up (a Kiwi term, meaning approached directly and spoke with honesty, openness and candor) to sponsors who had no previous connection with America's Cup sailing. And he successfully converted them to AC racing.

In his own, blunt, determined Kiwi way, he built a system, a philosophy, and a marvellous on board management style that puts function, energy, application, team work, performance and passion above emotion. Some say he even puts these values above enthusiasm.

But he has been successful in America's Cup, and he has built a leviathan.

Just what every Kiwi on the planet (sailor, fan, critic, journalist, sponsor, booster, blogger) could ever want from an America's Cup team. In some ways, Grant has reasserted New Zealand into the America's Cup.

But while Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC) and Ernesto Bertarelli (SUI) and his entities, Team Alinghi and Société Nautique de Genève (SNG), are doing what they have to do, and while BMW Oracle Racing (BOR), presumably the official challenger for America's Cup 33, are doing what they have to do, other America's Cup teams are in major disarray.

Grant Dalton himself has had to let 30% of New Zealand team members seek alternative opportunities.

On the legal front, Grant is now dealing with efforts in Justice Cahn's New York Supreme Court (about breach of contract by Alinghi) and about anti-trust issues in America's Cup 33 in New York District Court (before a jury).

Grant and the New Zealand team attorney, Jim Farmer (NZL), are managing the two new lawsuits.

Grant will be knowledgeable about all issues, but above all, he will be determined to succeed.

He has to seek compensation for his perception of breach of contract by Bertarelli which his lawyers (lead by a Kiwi lawyer) entered into with Alinghi lawyers (lead by a Kiwi lawyer).

Then, he has to manage the humongous, new legal event from the amazing David Boise (of Boise, Schiller and Flexner of New York) in which Mr. Hammer (David Boise) has decidedly seen a Nail (Alinghi's possessive interest in possessing every aspect of the America's Cup), which he believes needs hammering.

Apparently, this new legal effort is funded by passionate, loyal Kiwis who are focused on Team New Zealand's freedom to compete, with honor and goodwill, in the greatest sailing event on the planet, and who believe that New Zealand should take a second seat to no-one as complicated decisions are posited, assessed, adjudicated and decided.

Grant Dalton is a great man in a difficult position.

According to many observers, his team is right in its assertions. Yet he must do very unpopular things (like pursuing lawsuits) to ensure that New Zealand's best interests are protected.

As he himself admits, he is a sailor. Not a lawyer.

And we are humongously glad of that. In fact, our heart goes out to him and his team as he protects them, protects New Zealand's involvement in America's Cup, and pursues what he and his colleagues believe is the right course for Team New Zealand.

There is nothing perfect, or ideal, here.

We give our support to Grant.

Going, going ... Gone(t)

Well, it's over, even before it began.

Mr. Nicolas Gonet has (reluctantly) withdrawn his D35 entry from this year's event on Lake Geneva, depriving navigator Russell Coutts (NZL) of BMW Oracle Racing (BOR)'s involvement, and assuring that everything hums along, in a civil manner, on the cold water lake.

All the members of Société Nautique de Genève (SNG) apparently are now more comfortable than they were when the news was announced.

D35 on Lake Geneva is a special event for owner sailors. They created and shaped the event for fun, great sailing, and friendly competition.

That will continue, and if reports are true, without Bank Gonet's entry.

Ernesto Bertarelli (SUI), a club member and D35 competitor was shown great sympathy by the sailing community.

We don't know if BOR's involvement was anything more than just a little financial support for Russell's fun on the lake.

Anyhow, good luck to SNG club members. Best wishes to Ernesto and his team. And perhaps Mr. Gonet will be encouraged to re-enter, and his fellow club members will welcome him back.

Honor (real or faux?), gentlemanly restraint, and much more to come on Lake Geneva

Above, we see Bank Gonet's D35 multihull on Lake Geneva.

Who is Gonet? Read on.

Valencia Sailing today reported news from Alinghi (SUI) about the D35 multihull competition held among the rich and well-heeled on Lake Geneva, under auspices of several clubs, including guess who -- Société Nautique de Genève (SNG).

For those of you who haven't been paying attention to sporting events on Lake Geneva (which includes most of us), this is a multihull contest for a gold prize, which SNG club member Ernesto Bertarelli (SUI) won in 2007 -- the so-called Bol d'Or, a prize that 10 boats, owned mostly by SNG members, compete for over eight events.

Seemingly out of nowhere, Nicolas Gonet, scion of the multi-generational Swiss private bank Gonet, one of those magnificently private Swiss banks, famous for money, subtle power and utter discretion, and in Gonet's case, winner of the Bol d'Or prize in 2006, is planning to introduce BMW Oracle Racing into the D35 lake racing circuit in 2008.

That's BMW ORACLE RACING!!!

Gonet's navigator is Russell Coutts (NZL), for crying out loud. The D35 is a multihull. And BMW Oracle Racing is a concept that couldn't be more alien to this elegant, aristocratic, Swiss cold water event.

This is Lake Geneva. The Swiss elite. Private Swiss banks. SNG. Ernesto, himself.

And here comes ... LARRY!

According to the Alinghi news machine, Ernesto protests -- in a pin-stripe kind of way -- his fellow club member Nicolas Gonet's initiative to introduce BMW Oracle Racing to the elite circuit.

Ernesto professes concern that an enemy of SNG is joining the circuit. After all, Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC), host club of Larry Ellison (USA)'s BMW Oracle Racing America's Cup Team, is currently engaged in litigation against SNG in Justice Herman Cahn's New York Supreme Court .

Yet Ernesto avers he will not protest.

This situation, he says, magnanimously, must be resolved 'on the water'.

Holy moley!!!

This is a whopper. We have only scant information. More to come!

Right ways, and wrong ways

Few would doubt that the New York York Yacht Club (NYYC) would make a fine mega-trustee for the America's Cup.

But I'm sure even Commodore Charles Townsend, his board and NYYC members would agree: if we want to rule, we'd better form a team, build a boat and win the Cup.

Interestingly, Malin Burnham of San Diego and Ernesto Bertarelli (SUI) are both on the same page. Both want the NYYC involved in the Cup's future.

But Ernesto is the legitimate defender. He approached NYYC to discuss the Protocol, the event and its evolution -- with standing and honor.

Perhaps those who have a reason to be there should endorse Ernesto's initiative and find a way to join the discussions. That would be in the letter and spirit of the Cup.

The alternative? Piracy.

Sounds like hijacking

The famous Malin Burnham, San Diego sailor, businessman and civic leader, who helped organize San Diego Yacht Club's America's Cup defenses from 1988 through 1995 and managed Dennis Connor's successful challenge in Australia in 1986-87, has come to the rescue of the America's Cup.

Let's hijack the event, he says.

Let's have New York Yacht Club petition the New York Supreme Court to corrupt the Deed of Gift and allow the legal defender (Société Nautique de Genève) only one right -- namely, to enter the next event.

Then, let's take America's Cup Management -- actually let's corrupt that, too -- and let's make it a non-profit organization. Let's stuff the board of directors with heavyweight worthies from all previous defenders, plus a member or two from each of the new challengers.

Let's give the new organization all the rights for everything, presumably now and forever, and let them do whatever they want, whenever they like, for whatever reason, just like the Olympics.

Brilliant!!

Here is an idea that advocates assumption of the dictatorship of the event, displacing the Prince of Alinghi, Ernesto Bertarelli (SUI), and reinvesting it with a group of individuals, most of them veteran AC officials, under some vague and ill-defined authority that owes more to Captain Jack Sparrow of Disneyland than it does to the late, lamented and honorable George L. Schuyler.

Is nothing sacred?

Corrupting America's Cup because Ernesto ran away with it doesn't repair the damage.

That sounds eerily like 'we have to destroy this village in order to save it.'

America's Cup is dead.

Nothing about America's Cup is happening.

It's a weird world of lawyers, cat designers, Ernesto (Bertarelli, SUI)'s silence, Larry (Ellison, USA)'s silence, and total silence from Brad Butterworth (NZL) and Russell Coutts (NZL), who are the uber-hired guns of Ernesto and Larry.

And we have heard nothing meaningful from their attorneys.

AC sailors and their families are thinking about educating their children, looking for alternative forms of revenue, praying for a resolution, and if they are lucky, preparing to sail big fat useless cats, trimarans or barges. But nobody knows for sure.

What we do know for sure is this:

(1) Ernesto never raised any kind of money to stage any kind of America's Cup 33.

(2) Period. (Full stop, for the rest of you.)

(3) That's the real reason why AC33 isn't happening in a dignified way.

(4) That's also why Ernesto has retreated to the courts, and has curiously and mysteriously disappeared and gone underground (where? The Alps? Martinique? South America?).

(5) Larry's team injected a multihull into their protest as a threat to force Ernesto to respond seriously, but as we subsequently discovered, Ernesto wasn't serious. Or actually was ultra canny.

(6) Ernesto called Golden Gate Yacht Club (USA)'s bluff.

(7) Now, maybe GGYC's language (about keels, hulls and barges) has thrown an unnecessary wrench into the works.

(8) Maybe catmarans are going to be it for AC33. Maybe not.

(9) Everything has warped into a weird world, and the rest of us are watching what happens on ValenciaSailing and Scuttlebutt and GGYC and Sail-world, rather than following what should really be happening on these sites which is about those big, beautiful boats being built for AC33.

(10) The sad fact is, America's Cup is in worse shape than ever.

(11) This huge, powerful event basically doesn't exist.

(12) It's dead.

(13) We may fuss about it. We may worry about it. We may blog about it. But the rest of the world actually has moved on -- legitimate journalists have removed America's Cup from their websites, focused on other sports, and gone elsewhere.

For example, The New York Times correspondent Christopher Clary (who did a great job during AC32) was last seen writing from Melbourne about the Australian Tennis Open (he did a great job).

If you are a sailor, you know that Olympic and other sailing agendas currently are more important than AC33. Just log into Sail-World and see.

Summer-down-under sailing events are filling all the online websites we visit.

Round-the-world challenges enthrall us.

AC33 stubbornly remains a non-event. It's about press releases from major players, learned assessments from uber-lawyers, blogfluff from the rest of us, and occasional sideline lobs from sailing bigwigs who have no jurisdiction over America's Cup.

It's all rather sad.

Nobody, nowhere, anywhere, for any reason, has anything substantive to say about America's Cup.

If we drain the swill pond, maybe something can happen. But we doubt it. Anyone who cares anything is fruitlessly centered on Justice Herman Cahn's New York courtroom, where maybe something will happen, sometime.

But probably even the great Cory Friedman, Esq. would admit it's going to be an elevation to an appeal court, somewhere in New York. God help us.

Meanwhile, the defender has no money. And never did.

Ernesto had no money to make an authentic AC33 happen because he never recruited new sponsors. And he blew away the only real sponsor that counts, Louis Vuitton.

So AC33 is deader than dead.

And AC34 has no viable reality, thanks to the confusion.

That means a lot of serious, rich and vested people must be thinking seriously about what America's Cup means, and whether or not it will ever mean anything again.

Frankly, that's up to Ernesto.

He is the man who committed the humongous bruta figura that started all this.