Paul Cayard is whining like a little girl; if his career had anything left in it, he’s stamping it out with both feet. Russell Coutts has seemingly disappeared from the face of the Earth. Iain Murray is aging faster than Obama. Mediation has failed, and neither ETNZ nor Luna Rossa is going to allow Murray to provide a back door for Oracle Team USA to fix a design that got it wrong just by screaming about the danger. Four days of mediation over the proposed rules just failed miserably, and whatever the AC Jury decides, a trip to the NY Supreme Court seems more and more likely. And any time the court gets involved, shit has a way of changing big time.
How Big?
How about 90 feet maximum on the waterline? That’s right folks; if the court invalidates ACEA/RMs little safety dance, there’s a chance it could invalidate the entire protocol, meaning the next challenger is the one that matters. And if that happens – well – to use a familiar phrase from AC-33: Mark your fucking calendars. ‘Cause in 10 months, we might just be watching a pair of boats that make the baddest raceboat ever built look like a cruiser.
Dana Johansson outlines the issues pretty well in this NZ Herald piece, but the real place to learn requires you to put on your waders and jump in to the fray. Or you could enjoy this little piece from SA’er ‘Yves Klein’ below; if you don’t recognize it, read the title of this piece again.
Friends, Sailors, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury the rules, not to praise them.
The speed that yachts have lives after them;
As does their fast grip on the silver ewer.
The safety is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with the rules.
The noble Murray
hath told you high wind foiling on a catamaran was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault;
And grievously hath Murray answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Murray and the rest, —
For Murray is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable men,
Barclay, Ehman, Coutts, Ellison, all of them —
Come to speak at high wind foiling’s funeral.
It was my inspiration, fast and stable to me:
But Murray and Barclay and Ehman say it was dangerous;
And they are honorable men.
