Now We Wait

The legal wrangling is wrangled. The posturing and posing, postured and posed.

Now, it’s time for some sailboat racing, right?

Wrong. Now we wait some more, as the Big Boys make up their minds -- out of the spotlight of truth and beyond the scope of the average (non-billionaire) sailor.

On the one hand (Alinghi), the current and the two-time America’s Cup winner, considers appealing the recent ruling it lost in a US court (shock?) regarding its infamous Challenger of Record, a non-yachting “yacht club” created from thin air to keep Challengers off guard and, perhaps, under the thumb of the Big A.

On the other, there are the so-called “Winners” of the lawsuit over in the U. S. of A. at Oracle, that is, Larry Ellison and the tiny Golden Gate Yacht Club, their Challenging club. (One winner: Oracle, the software company, wins on Wall Street, as shareholders saw their stock more than double since the last two America’s Cups were awarded to the Swiss. It seems the more he loses, the better his stock does. I wonder how shareholders, including your Blogster, in times past, like the most: Good racing or rising stock prices?)

Despite having lost the last Cup in the early rounds, the BMW/Oracle so-called Dream Team has already noted that they want the next challenge to be in monster cats next year, 10 months from the time of the judge’s ruling (October?). Well, he’s ruled. So, by their own measure the next event should be conducted mano-a-mano: Ernesto Bertarelli vs. Larry Ellison, jousting dollar signs at 50 paces, a.k.a., in expensive darn boats the average bear can't afford. Sounds perfectly . . . perfect.

The logic here escapes this Blogster, but anything’s possible in sailboat racing, one now sees playing out here and there, off the race course, behind closed doors.

It’s anyone’s guess what may happen.

The losers to date:

* Fans, expecting serious competitions between the best competitors (this would be the Swiss team and the New Zealand Team)
* Europeans, who just love sailing, the sailing parties, the rock stars and their spouses living it up in public settings adjacent to the docks.
* The gigantic American new media, who seem to have take an eight-year hiatus from the entire event, carrying stories few and far between, mostly emanating from a reporter here and there with “inside connections” to Alinghi or Oracle. (Your blogster can't even get the local newspaper in Stamford, CT, to run a teeny, tiny story on the Cup on their Internet site!)
* All advertisers, who’ve temporarily washed their hands of this who mess until the dust settles and customers are to be identified and advertised to make an honest buck.

The winners to date:
* Ugh...who exactly are they? A few attorneys?
* A few Cup yacht designers, with pencils poised on their drawing boards?
Alinghi, which has just issued a gorgeous picture-book of AC32, including wonderful photos of most participants and some incredible on-water photos?
* The America’s Cup Management Committee, who has gotten a chance to meet almost full time to discuss endless options facing them in the next few years?
* Some professional hired-gun sailors doing their pushups, griding out their situps and running their miles to get into shape for whatever event comes down the pike first.

Who’d have thunk: Win the Cup, Lose the War . . . for the attention to the global sailing audience and just about everyone else as well.

Fortunately, there’s still time: Guy - - Get EVERYONE into a room and don’t leave until the next two years of race preparation milestones are established. Done. Finis. Print the T shirts. This ain't Iraq. Let's get everyone into the expiring-lease club house in Valencia, then out onto the race course. NOW.