Sailing: Fed up with the Cup
By Stuart Alexander
The fact that most visitors would not know the difference between computational fluid dynamics and a power shower is irrelevant in the buttoned up world of Alinghi and the America's Cup. Even though everyone in the room knows that under the 19th century deed of gift rules that govern the Cup, the defender has to be ready for a challenge with 10 months notice, the assertion that Alinghi would need a minimum of nine months to build a boat and a further two to work it up is delivered with deadpan confidence.
On the shore side, one insider described the weekday atmosphere as "almost monastic" as earnest designers, engineers and mathematical wizards worked with "tools" that are given almost infallible status in the birth of an even faster boat. Intuition is something that a computer cannot provide and seems to be something regarded with considerable suspicion.
But the wet team, the people whose skill and strength combine to race the yachts to their limit still care passionately about winning and playing a game on the track which is their home, the sea. They seem as fed up with the current demise of the America's Cup as the strident chorus of detractors writing to their favourite web sites week in and week out.
So, in Valencia last week, as work continued at Spanish pace on the construction of the Formula One road track that incorporates the America's Cup port, instead of the planned charm offensive to recharge the image from negative to positive, the body language was one of pent up frustration.
And all the better for that. This game badly needs to be back on the right track.
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