America's Cup spirit of adventure gone with wind

By JOHN LEICESTER AP Sports Columnist

PARIS (AP) - Billionaires Ernesto Bertarelli and Larry Ellison are so massively rich that they can afford to build two of the most awe-inspiring yachts that ocean racing has ever seen. Yet both are being outshone, even shamed, by 16-year-old sailors with a fraction of their means.

Such as Jessica Watson. The Australian and her bubble-gum pink 34-foot single-master are somewhere in the Pacific now, a couple of weeks into her quest to sail alone and unassisted around the world. Another 16-year-old, Abigail Sunderland, hopes to set sail from California on her solo circumnavigation in December.

No fuss, no theatrics, just two kids realizing their dreams, with the same sailing spirit of adventure that over the centuries pushed back the frontiers of mankind's world.

In sum, the very same ingredients that Bertarelli and Ellison, the bickering billionaires, are sucking from sailing's most prestigious showpiece, the America's Cup.

Having more money than sense and egos to dwarf an unfurled mainsail have often been traits of those who pursue the cup, the oldest trophy in international sports. Almost from its very beginnings in 1851, this contest between nations has been a rich gentleman's equivalent of bare-knuckle boxing. Low blows, accusations of poor sportsmanship and other assorted skullduggery are as much parts of cup lore as feats of nautical mastery.

It is, in the words of cup historian Jacques Taglang, "a soap opera."

Only this time, we're about ready to switch off.

What should be one of sport's most exhilarating spectacles, a conspicuous consumption poke in the eye to economic recession, has become as tedious as being becalmed on a yacht with no wind. The only real action, if it can be called that, has been in New York courts of law.

The billionaires, who used to be friends, have fallen out completely. Back, forth and back again, for two mind-numbing years and counting, battalions of lawyers for their competing camps have fought. About the rules. About the venue for the race. About the boat designs. About pretty much any argument canny lawyers can think of.

There may have been genuine justifications for all this, some sacred legal principle so vital to the future of life, the universe and everything that it is worth holding the cup hostage for. But if there was, then it has long since been drowned under tidal waves of writs, submissions, suits and affidavits.

The publication Litigation Daily perhaps best summed up this sorry saga, acidly noting that "very few cases in recent legal history have featured the exquisite litigation skills of such a high-priced, high-caliber cadre of lawyers as those who have toiled, at little or no benefit to society, on the America's Cup dispute."

Adds Taglang, the historian: "Somewhere, a little of the real sense of adventure has disappeared ... It can tire even the aficionados of the America's Cup like me."

The ultimate upshot of this will be a sailing grudge-match, a pistols at dawn scenario where both sides will face off with their sailing weapon of choice.

Self-made software tycoon Ellison, ranked fourth on Forbes magazine's 2009 list of billionaires, has opted for a three-hulled monster that looks more like a Klingon spaceship than a yacht. It is the first trimaran to race for the America's Cup. Just the mast it snapped this week in training is believed to have cost $10 million - enough in the real world for a whole fleet of yachts like Watson's.

Bertarelli's estimated worth is $8.2 billion, ranking him 52nd on Forbes' list, just behind Chelsea soccer club owner Roman Abramovich. His response to Ellison's challenge is a fearsome catamaran that took 100,000 man-hours to build, has a mast taller than a 17-story building and is roughly as wide as two tennis courts side by side.

Sailing this giant feels like "floating or flying," says its skipper, Brad Butterworth.

"The speeds are something quite amazing," the four-time cup winner says. "You don't have the sensation of the hull going through the water."

So why the wait? For the good of both the cup and sailing, lawyers need to make way for sailors. If 16-year-olds can navigate alone on the ocean, how hard can it be for bickering billionaires to stop feuding and heed Mark Twain's call to adventure?

"Throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails," the American author and humorist once said. "Explore. Dream. Discover."

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John Leicester is an international sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jleicester(at)ap.org