U.S. wins back America's Cup

I had no idea at all this was even going on. Didn't this used to be a big deal? Apparently the U.S. boat won in a two-race sweep; used to be best-of-9, IIRC.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hPuKC1liAAJ6ZtClHM10RjpXropwD9DS3K180

 

Our paper actually sent someone to the America's Cup races in Australia and to the Goodwill Games in Moscow . . . when we were a real newspaper.

 

The Swiss didn't want you to know it was going on. Ernesto Bertarelli thought he had found a way to practically keep the America's Cup in the foyer of his mansion until he died.

I posted this on the letters thread originally ...<blockquote>Dear Alinghi backers and Switzerland in general,

Suck it! It's our fucking cup and we're taking it back! Go drown in your ocean, foofs!

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/news/story?id=4913750

Seriously, you tried to game the system in every way possible to try to keep this challenge from happening, to the point that the court supervising the original Deed of Gift had to step in repeatedly. The America's Cup deserved a better, more honorable cup-holder than you ... and now it has one in the Golden Gate Yacht Club.

Sincerely,
USA! USA! USA!

Dear Larry Ellison,

Thank you. You're an asshole but you were the only asshole we had.

-2mcm-</blockquote>The Swiss did nothing to market this on this side of the ocean, or even outside the Continent. No TV deal or even recap package rights sold over here. The original Deed of Gift challenge came from a Spanish "yacht club" that only existed on paper, appeared to be comprised of three officials of Spain's sailing federation and didn't meet the Deed of Gift standards because it had never hosted a competitive regatta (not surprising, given that it only existed on paper). A conspiracy theorist would conclude that Swiss were conspiring with the Spanish to keep the competition in Valencia for a long time, no matter who the actual cup-holder was.

Ellison literally had to sue repeatedly in the Supreme Court for the State of New York in Albany (which is the governing body of the Deed of Gift, a trust document registered in New York) to force the Swiss to abide by the terms of the Deed of Gift, and one of those challenges hasn't been decided -- it's possible that Alinghi5's sails were made in Nevada (the Deed of Gift requires all parts of a boat to be made in the country that boat represents).

The Swiss deserved to get their snooty asses kicked and did. USA17 is an awesome boat -- a 90-foot trimaran with a beam (width) also at 90 feet -- and Alinghi5 (a catamaran of similar dimensions) never stood a chance once the boats got on the water. I hope the Swiss are happy with their choice of giant multihulls for racing.

 

Has anyone cared about the America's Cup since 1990? I mean the fact we didn't even know it was going on says an awful lot.

 

Jimmy Connors died? :'(

 

A great day for the U.S.A. Maybe we'll start caring again.

 

Catamarans haven't always been used, have they?

 

No.

The cup holder can dictate the type of boat used, I believe.

 

Yeah, doesn't the original Deed of Gift essentially give the incumbent Cup-holder the right to determine the rules and complete format of the next competition, sort of like allowing the Los Angeles Lakers to specify the next winner of the NBA Championship would be determined by the winner of a 1-on-1 game between Kobe Bryant and a player to be selected from the roster of any challenging team (as long as that player's name was not "LeBron James") ??

: : :

If anyone really cares, there ought to be a "World Yachting League" in which the cup is put up for grabs at regular intervals, with all the rules of the competition set ahead of time and not easily changed.

 

I guess that's what you get for letting a landlocked country enter (and win) the America's Cup.

 

Didn't this used to take place in the summer?