The America’s Cup is dead—long live the Euro Cup

A letter to Full and By:

Dear Bill:

As a faithful subscriber who has turned to SAILING for many years to read about the America’s Cup, I have to get something off my chest: I hate the new America’s Cup.

We had a perfectly good America’s Cup. Then they went and changed it, and now it’s gone to hell in a handbasket. No, it’s worse than that. It’s gone to Europe! They don’t even like us over there, and they’re in charge of our Cup.

This is a sad comedown from the days when it truly was America’s Cup. We owned it lock, stock and barrel, and for good reason—we sailed better, had better boats and had the the New York Yacht Club to run things and make sure Americans always got a fair shake and a little more. Now the rules are made by the entrepreneurial sharks who bought their way into the Cup with too many millions to count and shamelessly attempt to manipulate it to their advantage.

When it was our Cup, we took care of it in a proper yachting venue, Newport, Rhode Island, a cozy town where almost everyone was a sailor and the flukey air, fog and clam chowder gave the historic event the East Coast ambience it deserved. Now the America’s Cup is going to be held in Valencia, Spain, a polluted industrial port where they want you to spend euros (lots of them) instead of dollars, don’t speak English and don’t serve dinner until the average American’s bedtime. And they call it the America’s Cup!

In Spain, of course, they’ll be racing those overbred, slab-sided machines that look like grotesquely enlarged versions of the toys kids can transform from war machines to monsters. How can ordinary sailors relate to those things? Twelve-Meters might not have been the most exciting boats around, but when they were the America’s Cup boats, we could all identify with them, even imagine ourselves sailing them. The new Cup boats are so complex you need a doctorate in mechanical engineering to trim the main.

And who’s going to be sailing those monsters? Don’t ask me. I just know it won’t be Americans, at least not very many of them, even on the so-called “American” boat fielded by BMW Oracle. Inspiring name, huh? That’s what it’s come to—America’s Cup syndicates and boats named after cars, computer software and slinky Eurotrash clothing. When it was our Cup, the boats had heroic names like Courageous, Freedom and Intrepid.

Now Oracle’s Larry Ellison is the American standard bearer in the America’s Cup. Not only is he one of the world’s least likable tycoons, but his right hand man is Chris Dickson, a martinet who is always in the running for the title of the most detested man in professional sailing.

That doesn’t mean Ellison couldn’t win—he’s proven himself lucky. Martha Stewart went to prison on a charge that derived from insider trading. Ellison admitted to insider trading and got off with an order to give $100 million to a charity of his choice. Some penalty! He may end up spending more than that on the America’s Cup. Maybe the America’s Cup will be the charity of his choice.

When the Cup was America’s, the personalities were people the sailing public could admire and empathize with. I still remember the charming photo in your magazine of Ted Turner and Gary Jobson strolling down Newport’s Thames Street in Bermuda shorts on their way to the Courageous dock, talking strategy, stopping to chat with well-wishers.

These guys, like the other American America’s Cup greats, were sailors with a human side. Remember Turner showing up for the press conference following his victory in the 1977 Cup series sloshed on rum? The corporate types competing for the Cup now don’t even know enough to drink the expensive bottles of champagne passed out after a Cup win. They shake them up and spray one another—whee, having fun now!

The Cup started its decline when the Australians beat us in 1983, though we probably didn’t realize it because we were weened off the Cup slowly by the good times in Australia and New Zealand, places where they love Americans and speak English.

But now it’s over. The America’s Cup is in Europe, where its only significance is that it’s a bottomless receptacle for an indecent amount of money that would be better spent on almost anything other than a meaningless competition among billionaires.

Sincerely,
Bitter Cup

Dear Bitter Cup:
I feel your pain. I miss the old America’s Cup as much as I miss 60 cent-a-gallon gasoline. The past is golden. But you can’t live there. So move on. The America’s Cup has undergone something that is hard to take—change. Since it’s inevitable, my advice is to relax and enjoy it.

Look at it this way: The America’s Cup is not important. It’s just entertainment, a spectacle. We’re fortunate that there’s a lot of that going on in sailing these days to amuse us—dangerous around-the-world races, record-breaking voyages, solo sailors in death-defying acts in multihulled contraptions that make America’s Cup boats look like sedate cruisers. The America’s Cup is just one more show to choose from.

Yes, there’s been some funny stuff going on since the Cup was carried off to Europe, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the spectacle. The boats you ridicule are brutal to sail but fun to watch. There won’t be many Americans aboard, but the Kiwis, Aussies, Asians and Europeans that will be sailing these beasts are among the best sailors in the world. You don’t have to like their bosses to take pleasure in their performances.

By the way, though you’re turned off by the Cup, Europeans seem to be turned on. Judging by the reception for the preliminary races called “acts,” the 2007 America’s Cup series will probably have the biggest audience ever.

And as for the wretched excess of money involved, why do you care? It’s not like it’s adding to the national debt, at least not ours. If Ellison and Swiss gazillionaire Ernesto Bertarelli and their ilk want to spend their way to sailing glory, fine—like money invested in a Broadway production, it improves the show.

I know I’ll be watching the tube when they finally sail this thing. Or maybe I’ll go to Spain and watch in person—if I can find a restaurant that serves dinner before 10 p.m.

Sincerely,
Bill

All right, I’ll admit it—I wrote the Bitter Cup letter. But plenty of other people could have—it reflects what a lot of disgruntled folks are saying and writing about what is no longer America’s Cup. I think they should lighten up.