Posted on 02/15/2010 1:04:44 AM PST by bruinbirdman
The oldest trophy in sports is coming to San Francisco. After fighting in the courts for years, and spending hundreds of millions of dollars, billionaire Larry Ellison won the America's Cup on Sunday with a technological marvel of a sailing yacht.
Ellison's syndicate, BMW Oracle Racing, won the second race in the best-of-three series by five minutes, 26 seconds over cup defender Alinghi, which is owned by Ellison's archrival, Swiss biotech magnate Ernesto Bertarelli. Two days earlier, Ellison's trimaran, USA-17, won the first race by 15 1/2 minutes.
"It feels spectacular," said a jubilant Ellison, holding the tall, silver ewer over his head Sunday night as thousands of spectators cheered and fireworks lit up the night sky. He took huge swigs from a magnum of Champagne, before spraying his helmsman Jimmy Spithill.
"It's a fabulous experience," said Ellison, who served as a strategist on USA-17. "I am very proud to be part of this team and I'm exceptionally proud of bringing the America's Cup back to the United States after a long absence."
The cup returns to the United States for the first time since 1995, when Team New Zealand's innovative Black Magic shut out U.S. skipper Dennis Conner off San Diego.
Ellison's victory could bring a major international spectacle to San Francisco Bay, one of the world's great natural amphitheaters for sailboat racing.
At the post-race news conference, though, Ellison said he has not yet decided where or when the next America's Cup races will be held - or whether the next cup will feature traditional monohulls or faster multihulls.
When he formed his team 10 years ago, Ellison spoke of holding future cup races on San Francisco Bay, but he has acknowledged that he might hold the cup in Valencia or Auckland, New Zealand, where shore bases have
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Ellison also mentioned San Diego as a possible place to hold the next Cup :)
cats rule.
I just wished an American would be skipper. Everyone of the crew of USA BMW were non-Americans except for the tactician.
The America’s Cup became irrelevant when it became all about money not sailing.
It's always been about money. Just who belongs to these yacht clubs who can build the fastest sailboat in the world?
yitbos
Well, I’m rather pleased Coutts won it. He got treated like a traitor by NZ for taking the role originally, as though he should be expected to sit in obscurity and fail to aim for a role suitable to his calibre and experience.
It was a nasty jingoistic side to NZ that dissappointed me and failed to recognise all he’d done for in the past.
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