By Morgan Stinemetz
America’s Cup did so in blazers and white shirts and ties. Now, the people who race the IACC cats look like they could just as well compete in a roller derby. “The IACC catamarans are so difficult to sail that, in an off moment, a hull can get buried in the water and cause the boat to flip, destroying millions of dollars worth of effort and technology in a nanosecond. The America’s Cup is going in the wrong direction, if you get my drift, Doobie. Look at the people who are sailing the boats. It looks as if, under their white jerseys, they are wearing body armor. It could be simply an inflatable life preserver, which is a fine option when sailing a boat that reaches its ultimate stability when it is totally inverted, upside down. “The best racing crews that money can buy are sailing these boats, but, it’s my opinion, they are sailing on the ragged edge of control. The America’s Cup has become all about speed. It’s like the people who enjoy this approach are also crystal meth users. The subtleties of match racing of similar sailboats are something I happen to enjoy, as do people who know something about sailing and racing—a definite minority of the American sporting public. “The America’s Cup has become a billionaire’s playground. The venue is so rarified now that even those who understand sailing and who race for an avocation cannot quite comprehend how the sport got so far away from reality. Can the average person sail in a boat like an IACC cat? Of course not. Can they even get a ride on an IACC cat? Not likely. They are too dangerous for the uninitiated. Racing these boats has become so specialized that there are now fewer people involved in actually sailing in the America’s Cup than there ever were.” Bubba had been holding forth so long that I thought he might be thirsty, so I held up my hand with two fingers raised. Doobie caught the signal and brought us a couple of glasses of beer. As she did, I noticed something about her, something I didn’t have the heart to explain to Bubba. “As I was saying, Doobie,” Bubba recommenced, “the
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America’s Cup as we have grown to know it and appreciate it—at least those of us who sail—has gotten to the point where it’s so totally esoteric that it’s nearly impossible to understand. The boats can sail at double-digit speeds and, with the right wind, accelerate 25 percent in seconds. How can a normal sailor identify with something like that? The answer is, of course, a normal sailor cannot. And normal sailors are not exactly on a par with people who like NASCAR racing or football or baseball. They are just a tiny minority. “So what we have here are boats that are enormously expensive, costing millions of dollars to build. They are also so hard to sail that the best sailors in the world, the cream of the sport, have trouble keeping them under control so that the boats don’t crash into a wave and stop, wrecking the boat in the process. Each team is allowed two boats. It would be weird, but not beyond possibility, that during training for the big race all the teams destroyed all the boats they had and there was no America’s Cup in San Francisco Bay after all, when it came to the year 2013.” Then Bubba changed tacks. “Doobie,” he called to the bartenderette, “what do you think the chances of that happening are? If it happened, would you give us sailors free beer on the day they didn’t hold the America’s Cup?” Doobie continued her chores behind the bar. She didn’t even glance Bubba’s way. “Doobie, what do you think?” asked Bubba, more loudly this time. Again, she didn’t reply. Bubba turned to me and said, “Doobie may be going deaf, I think.” I didn’t have the heart to tell Bubba that Doobie had her iPod on and the ear buds in. She had not heard one single word Bubba had said about America’s Cup racing during the five minutes he had been holding forth. What we had there at The Blue Moon Bar on that particular day was the biggest failure to communicate since Cool Hand Luke.
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December 2012
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