That's it. Americans the Golden Gate Yacht Club have recovered the money Ewer, as ugly as prestigious trophy for the oldest competing sports. The trimaran USA17 has imposed a "two wins to zero Alinghi 5, catamaran owned by Swiss billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli.
And this is no small defeat: more than a quarter of an hour late at the first regatta and 5'26 in the second for the unit (one hesitates to speak of boat) Swiss .
The Swiss have lost. But it was not for lack of trying everything to keep this cup. Really by all possible means.
It is true that the rules of this race so special permit to Defender (winner of the previous edition) set at it pleases the new rules of the upcoming edition. And Bertarelli, who has a lot of money, do not it is private. For 34 months he has done everything that his opponent can not win, preferably without ever going to compete on the sea, which is strange for a regatta. By dint of trying to impose its wishes as fallacious as surrealists, most of which have far exceeded the bounds of sportsmanship and good faith the most basic, most of the competition went to court U.S..
A boat?
Two examples among others are saying volumes about the spirit of the Switzerland's Alinghi team, until last December tried to impose that the Cup will be raced in Ras Al-Khaimah (who knows this microscopic corn UAE?) for the simple because the winds there are deemed never to exceed 7 knots, weather feature on the paper giving an advantage to his craft, so light that the suspect could not resist a breeze over 18 knots that supports fortunately without any difficulty sailing craft the most rudimentary.
recently as January, the Swiss have invented a clause which the leonine character would not escape a child of 6 years having learned from his spies that the challenger would probably fly a wing mast height of 70 meters taller than the wing of a Boeing 747, and knowing characteristics that make the craft difficult to maneuver in a confined space, Bertarelli has been pushing its competitor to be able just to go sailing in the "small" marina reserved for the Cup, while his own device would be quite incapable.
short, 36 months after successfully eliminate all potential competitors except one, the Union Golden Gate Yacht Club, headed by Larry Ellison. The man who became by force of circumstances his worst enemy is hammering him to this historic, on the water on the bank account (it is estimated that Bertarelli has spent 140 million, including $ 30 million charge attorneys, as Ellison ).
We see that Bertarelli has a lot of money.
All for it: the defeat, with a historic 20-minute delay will cost the Swiss billionaire the tune of 120,000 dollars (87,000 euros) per second. But here, even if it's outrageous, it's not as money: the America's Cup has always been the privileged expression of oversized egos and whims of billionaires, it is quite even one of its charms. Ellison, boss of Oracle, probably has nothing to envy in terms Bertarelli in bad faith and resources. But the responsibility of the Swiss billionaire is unsurpassable. In 36 months he has managed to miss everything, even threatening the very essence of this wonderful event 159 years old.
Incompetence billionaire helmsman
1) the technologies used have nothing innovative. Polynesian and French sailors have long known that multihull is faster than a monohull. So much so that both competitors had boarded some big names of French sailing in this mess.
If need be the demonstration had also been made at the 27th America's Cup, where the Americans catamaran Stars and Stripes have easily beaten the giant monohull New Zealanders .
2) does not imply any beginner multihull knows the weak point of these devices is the turn upwind. Again, the choice imposed by Bertarelli this type of vessel makes the racing game without much interest.
At the start of the first race, his opponent is stuck headwind over the line, while Alinghi took to their heels. Finally, USA17 1'27''crossed the line after him. In any race, this means the end of all hope of victory for the hapless skipper. Well then, no. Due to speed and angle of ascent to higher close, the U.S. competitor to Alinghi returned easily for him to over 3.5 km in the view on a journey of 20 nautical miles (38 km) or a performance gap of more than 10%. Which is huge when you consider that in this type of test, we give millions of dollars for something that would save 0.005% rate.
3) Of the two races sailed (and lost by him) the billionaire eccentric skipper of his craft - he had his team of talented helmsman - has found a way to scoop each time a penalty, which in the case of a tight duel reduced his chances of victory at zero. Which would not happen to a helmsman Optimist 8. At this level, it borders on incompetence.
All this occurs, we repeat within the framework imposed by Alinghi to ensure her victory.
4) Communication. It was imposed by the Swiss team that the Cup was to run in the week before the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. It's good communication strategy: avoid telescoping of events. Again Ratag monumental. For inexplicable reasons, even if the weather conditions were not ideally perfect, (see the incomprehension and despair Bruno Troublé undisputed international specialist in this field HERE), they were still playable for any boat sailing regattas have been repeatedly postponed, until Saturday, opening day of the Olympics.
5) Finally, this defeat took place while the judges were chosen by Bertarelli. As indicated in a cryptic way Larry Ellison at his press conference the evening of his victory: " I can also say that for the 34th America's Cup, the judges are independent, as the organizer ... .
So when he had done everything, but did everything to retain the Cup, Switzerland has lost everything. It is a déculottade large, a great mash, a historic thrashing, scale proportional to the sums of money at stake, as a further illustration of the financial casualness has completed the entire planet on the brink of bankruptcy.
Despite the immeasurable bad faith he has shown for months, obscenity financial Bertarelli shows he should not fight for money: he showed that he had many.
for anything, because it is defeated.
Rest honor.
Bertarelli would have lost it by crossing in these conditions, line 5, and 26 seconds after his opponent, then chose suffered, Sunday, February 14, 2010 in Valencia?
Image: BMW Oracle trimaran Training, February 8 off Valencia. REUTERS / Pascal Lauener
