KEY POINTS:
Hello, New Year. Welcome back, delay.
January 14 was supposed to have been the date when, at last, there would be some clarity over the next America's Cup.
Most observers were picking an October 2008 America's Cup regatta - in 90ft multi-hulls and involving only BMW Oracle and holders Alinghi. At least they were before Alinghi threw a new time-wasting spanner into the slow-grinding machinery of the America's Cup legal wrangle.
The 14th is when the New York Supreme Court meets to confirm its earlier decision when it ruled in favour of Oracle almost a month ago. It said then that Oracle should be challenger of record, instead of Alinghi's lapdog, a newly formed Spanish yacht club which allowed the holder to set all sorts of draconian rules for the next America's Cup regatta - changes which upset Oracle and other challengers and which ignited the court action.
On the 14th, the court was set to confirm its decision and issue a settlement order. It was also setto decide on the date of the head-to-head, multi-hull regatta - either May 2008 or October 2008. The latter is 10 months since Oracle's court challenge and was regarded as the most likely sailing date.
But that was before Alinghi, with a brand new legal team on board, signalled this weekend that they are seeking to re-open aspects of the NYSC decision.
The issuing of the settlement order could trigger either
(a) an Alinghi appeal or;
(b) the head-to-head, multi-hull duel in October or;
(c) a settlement between Alinghi and Oracle where they agree on new rules for a traditional Cup regatta, involving all challengers.
As much as (c) is desired, it seems unlikely now. Alinghi's new legal action seems designed to delay either the multi-hull option or the conventional America's Cup regatta. That's the new sport - delay. Many think Alinghi is playing for time right now, playing catch-up in the development of a 90ft catamaran or trimaran to take on Oracle in the multi-hull challenge.
Time was what many think Alinghi wanted when they petitioned the NYSC to delay the Oracle-led regatta until May 2009. This delayed the court's final settlement order - an appeal cannot be lodged until this order is published - to January 14. Alinghi boss Ernesto Bertarelli could have more legal cards up his sleeve yet. They can still appeal or find new ways of pulling off a legal filibuster.
If Alinghi are aiming for a multi-hull challenge, they need time to catch up to Oracle who quietly progressed their design at the same time they petitioned Alinghi to agree to a conventional regatta.
Confused? Irritated? Don't blame you. For a brief moment there, sport threatened to break out again. The mature, sportsmanlike thing for Alinghi to do is option (c) above. Accept the decision, shake hands, and negotiate a conventional regatta where Team New Zealand, Team Origin and others can compete for the world's greatest yachting prize and hopefully emulate one of the most exciting sporting events of 2007.
Instead of which Bertarelli and Oracle supremo, Larry Ellison, are butting heads, puffing chests and waving billionaires' willies at each other.
Bertarelli has achieved almost the impossible - he has helped the hard-nosed Ellison to be regarded as a Guardian of the America's Cup, something most people in Valencia would not have believed a few months ago. Ellison, to his credit, has always maintained that his number one goal was to get a traditional America's Cup regatta with all challengers involved.
But his strategy is also self-serving. Ellison can get his hands on the Cup through a head-to-head duel, as opposed to the challenger series-match race against the defender that typifies the America's Cup. Bertarelli's latest twist of the court's tail just isn't sport. It's corporate manoeuvres. It's about money, ego, lawyers and status. Competition? Where's that? The Corinthian ideal of sport for sport's sake has long since been lost overboard, but it would be comforting if someone mounted a search.
Get Ellison on the phone, Ernesto. Call him names, if you like. But negotiate a settlement and let's get this thing out of the legal soup and back on the water.
The America's Cup will survive this as it has survived other weird blips which have taken it out of the realm of sport. But Bertarelli and Ellison both deserve censure for hauling the Cup into the sporting equivalent of a topless jelly wrestling bout - but between lawyers.
Sadly, there seems no solution to this. I'd like to advocate that the sport ban billionaires as team owners and rely on syndicates, like Team New Zealand's.
But, even if such a thing were effected, you know what would happen, don't you?
Someone would take it to court.
