Editorial: Oh no, sailing is back again

OPINION: Sadly, the latest saga in America's Cup yachting history has been written. The Americans have claimed back sport's oldest trophy for the first time in 15 years, since Dennis Conner lost it to the Russell Coutts-led Team New Zealand.

This morning in Valencia, Coutts was there again, the hired help for software tycoon Larry Ellison as BMW Oracle Racing's space-age trimaran completed a 2-0 whitewash of defending champion Alinghi of Switzerland.

The cup now makes its way to the blue-collar San Francisco Golden Gate Yacht Club and planning can get under way for the 34th America's Cup challenge.

Ellison will take his time to formulate a plan for the next edition. He has said that he wants to get back to sailing it in monohulls, but the venue and the format are some time away.

So why should we be sad the battle between Ellison and another multi-millionaire, Ernesto Bertarelli, is over? Because we didn't get to see enough of two marvels of technology in action? The yachts are feats of engineering genius.

To see them racing at such speeds, with so little of their hulls actually touching the water, has been incredible.

The Americans won the design battle though and their radical wing sail was the game-breaker. It meant that in a best-of-three series the on-water action was always going to be brief.

But that is not the reason to feel melancholy. The reason for sadness is of much more importance to the people of this country.

With the courtroom battles over and the cup having been decided on the water, it seems inevitable that Team New Zealand will be resurrected to run in the next version.

And that means a lot of media space and money will be dedicated to a sport that barely deserves it.

The Ellison-Bertarelli battle is the second major spat between rich men that has derailed the America's Cup in the past 20-plus years.

Back in 1988 it was our own Sir Michael Fay who took the cup to court and ended up tying the sport in red tape for years before Conner's catamaran dealt to the Kiwi monohull.

This time around Ellison and Bertarelli fought for two years in court over rules, dates and the venue. Because they couldn't agree on terms of a traditional America's Cup regatta, it defaulted to a Deed of Gift match, following the rules of the 1887 document that governs the event.

Other countries and their sailing teams have continued on in the meantime, competing in a series of costly but insignificant regattas.

It has been hard to get enthusiastic about yachting, a result richly deserved because of the antics of the money men.

But now Team New Zealand is bound to be back in the fold, the yachting machine will crank up. It will soak up every spare sponsorship dollar and dominate the airwaves, particularly in Auckland.

We're been spared the rich boys with their toys for a couple of years, but that is going to change. Bugger.

Any chance of a Bertarelli appeal to the courts?

- © Fairfax NZ News