SailJuice Blog

Will Ernesto Bertarelli look back on 2007 as his Annus Mirabilis or his Annus Horribilis? For the Swiss billionaire, it must surely have been both. The first half of the year, he presided over an America’s Cup which could claim to have been one of the greatest ever. Not only that but he successfully defended it in a final which produced the closest racing in the event’s history.

A few weeks later, Bertarelli’s great works were in tatters, thanks to a greedy, self-serving Protocol (at least that’s how it came across to most sane people), and a petulant refusal to negotiate with the Golden Gate Yacht Club.

After losing the court battle in New York and seeing Justice Cahn reject the Spanish Challenge of Record for the sham challenge that it was, Alinghi are building up to a second court… Read the rest

No one knows their America’s Cup history like British journo Bob Fisher. Inducted into the America’s Cup Hall of Fame a few years ago, Bob has seen the event wax and wane over the years.

In response to Ernesto Bertarelli’s open letter of last Friday, Bob has published another open letter by way of response. You get the sense that Ernesto was attempting to strike a note of conciliation last week, but he finds little support for his suggestions from Bob Fisher, who leaves us in no doubt about his views on Ernesto’s proposed reformation of the Deed of Gift.

8th December 2007

Dear Ernesto,

I thank you for your open letter and for the 90 minutes of your valuable time that you granted for an interview.

At the Rolex World Sailor of the Year Award dinner you took… Read the rest

At last some news – and some of it positive – from Ernesto Bertarelli. No time to comment yet, it’s Friday evening! But let’s hope this means the dialogue really does reopen between Defender and Challenger of Record.

One thing that did catch my eye. Ernesto raises this fundamental question:

“Should the Defender automatically be qualified for the final AC Match or should all teams start on equal footings?”

Wow! Does he really mean that? After all the ‘command and control’ stuff in the 33rd Protocol, he throws the Defender’s fundamental power wide open to debate. It’s very late in the day to raise such philosophical questions about what the America’s Cup should be, when time is running out just to get it staged in 2009. But at least Ernesto has spoken. Here’s hoping things improve from here.

Here is… Read the rest

Anything happen while I was away? Apologies for the lack of correspondence lately but I’ve been taking some post-Valencia holiday. I’ll really have to schedule my time better for the next Cup. After all, as we’ve discovered this time, when the side-show of the sailing has concluded you have at least another month of legalistic shenanigans and wheeling and dealing to get through.

This time, unfortunately, we’re looking at good deal longer than a month to unravel the mess created by the Protocol for the 33rd Cup. For a legal journalist this is probably about as exciting as it gets. For a sailing simpleton like me, this is all insufferably tedious. But it’s the America’s Cup, and it goes with the territory.

Bizarrely, there was no joint press conference for winner and loser today. Just the winners – Alinghi. I wonder why. Perhaps there was a clue in Ernesto Bertarelli’s final comment in the winner’s conference this afternoon.

“For us it was coming out alive or dead, and we came out of it alive with our leather shorts and our edelweiss, cuckoo clocks and chocolate factories. I think what Alinghi is a lot of what Switzerland is: a country in the middle of Europe which has had to survive; has had to deal with with its bigger neighbours; has had to be open to different cultures; three different cultures; welcomes foreigners who have contributed to the country and to its culture; a country that looks forward, to its technology, doesn’t have great natural resources, has to be inventive.

“I think the culture… Read the rest

Call it a lottery, call it tiddlywinks, call it Las Vegas, Race 3 of the 32nd America’s Cup was one of the all time greats. With the wind blowing 7 to 9 knots in an enormous swell, and the breeze shifting through 20 degrees or more, this was a hair-raising rollercoaster ride in slow motion.

We witnessed another great pre-start, with Ed Baird getting the better of Dean Barker on this occasion – or did he? On the face of it, bouncing the Kiwis into a tack with just 10 seconds to the start, while SUI 100 launched off the line at speed – 8 seconds ahead – looked like an early victory to the Swiss.

But a few minutes later it became apparent that Barker had been prepared to bet his shirt on winning the right. When NZL 92… Read the rest