Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Craig McCaw's Ship Is Sinking-

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 19:22:11 -0500

http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=judd24&date=20021024&query=CRAIG+McCaw

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Sports:
Thursday, October 24, 2002

Information in this article, originally published October 24, has been corrected. A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the nationality of Chris Dickson. Dickson, the new Oracle skipper in the current yacht race for the America's Cup, is a native New Zealander. The original article said he was American.

Ron C. Judd / Times staff columnist

OneWorld-Alinghi battle portends sail of century

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The Seattle Times America's Cup site

It's impossible to know, exactly, what thoughts went through the heads of the sailors from Seattle's OneWorld crew yesterday as they helplessly watched archrival Alinghi of Switzerland destroy, with one piercing blow, their hard-earned perfect record in the Louis Vuitton Cup.

But we're guessing that chief among them was this: Thank God that guy in the backseat is Craig McCaw, not Larry Ellison.

McCaw, as fate would have it, was "17th man" aboard his baby, USA-67, for the first time as it suffered its first Cup racing loss — a maddeningly close defeat by Alinghi, the high-financed Swiss entry skippered by the America's Cup golden-boy duo of skipper Russell Coutts and navigator Brad Butterworth, both New Zealanders.

Nobody is really sure how the normally mild-mannered McCaw will respond to a loss — this being his first one. But chances are he'll take it in stride, knowing his team will remain intact to fight Alinghi another day, on the same course, with even more at stake.

More to the point: We'd be willing to bet our new merino-wool New Zealand longjohns that McCaw doesn't begin the day today by summarily firing his driver.

That was Oracle CEO Ellison's creative — and predictable — approach yesterday to righting his floundering black boat. Ellison, the self-proclaimed "skipper/team head'' (and my, what a head it is) of the Bay Area syndicate, unceremoniously canned helmsman Peter Holmberg — a man whom Ellison had proclaimed firmly "in charge'' of the Oracle camp in a media love-athon before racing began.

Holmberg wasn't just demoted to a lesser seat in the afterguard — he was pitched off the boat altogether, in favor of Chris Dickson, a top New Zealand driver whom His Royal Larryness had fired about six months ago.

Just as expected in many boat sheds along Halsey Street, the talented, but ego-heavy Oracle camp is disintegrating under the increasing pressures of Cup yacht racing. And equally as expected, the OneWorld and Alinghi camps — ever more clearly, the class boats in this field — are solidifying.

Yesterday's classic OneWorld-Alinghi clash was their second in this young Cup season. In the first, OneWorld, with the lethal green-sapling/hard-oak combination of helmsman James Spithill and skipper Peter Gilmour, grabbed an early 10-second lead that day and never let it go. It was the only blemish on the opening-round record of Alinghi, which entered this regatta as a solid favorite.

Same story, different ending yesterday, when Alinghi avenged itself with a flawless performance that left OneWorld trailing from the boats' first convergence to the finish line nearly two hours later. Final margin: 27 seconds. Final prognosis: Two boats so equally matched, they could sail the course over and over and exchange wins every time.

Yesterday's match portends a potentially legendary clash between the same two boats later on, perhaps in the Vuitton finals in January — summer on the Hauraki Gulf.

OneWorld won the start yesterday, but uncharacteristically lost the strategy battle, with Alinghi conceding a start-box lead to claim the favorable right side — and ultimately the crucial starboard-tack advantage when the boats converged after their first long tacks. Throughout the race, Alinghi was faster upwind; OneWorld swifter to the leeward marks.

Did Alinghi tweak its setup during the off week to gain upwind speed it lacked against OneWorld last time? Or was it just, at last, a case of bad luck and less-precise-than-usual boat handling by OneWorld? All part of the delicious next-day speculation of an America's Cup regatta — boathouse conversation today from Rangitoto Island to Renton.

Two things are clear: There's nary a Kiwi dime's difference in the overall speed, handling or deft crew work of these two grand yachts. And all those things being equal, yesterday belonged to Coutts.

The Kiwi skipper — undefeated in consecutive America's Cup defenses with Team New Zealand — had suffered his first Cup loss in eight years in his last meeting with Spithill, Gilmour and the OneWorld boys. Five minutes into this race, Coutts grabbed the advantage with gusto, then went on to drive as flawless a race as Auckland has seen this month.

Case in point: the second windward mark, where Coutts forced Spithill to adjust his lay line and tack awkwardly twice before rounding a mark that Alinghi cleared cleanly. It gave Alinghi its biggest lead — about 50 seconds.

In this business, that's all it takes.

The defeat leaves OneWorld and Alinghi with identical racing records, though OneWorld will lose a point at the end of the round robin because of an earlier rules infraction.

More than anything else, it sets the scene for what should prove a delicious climax to this little South Pacific show of sublime sailboat racing and silly spending. Remember: Billionaire syndicate heads McCaw and Ernesto Bertarelli (the navigator aboard Alinghi) shelled out the gross national products of some island nations to be where they were yesterday, racing close enough to hear each other sweat on the turquoise waters of Hauraki Gulf.

This, we can say for sure: $160 million — the budgetary total for these two boats — doesn't buy what it used to. But it'll still pay for one heck of a yacht race.

All the sailing world awaits the delightful prospect of the next one.

Ron C. Judd: 206-464-8280 or [email-masked].

Copyright © 2002 The Seattle Times Company

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