The Billionaire and the Mechanic: How Larry Ellison and a Car Mechanic Teamed Up to Win Sailing's Greatest Race, the Americas Cup, Twice by Julian Guthrie

Author:Julian Guthrie
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780802121363
Publisher: Grove Press
Published: 2014-04-01T16:00:00+00:00

21

Bangkok, Thailand,

to Cagliari, Italy

November 2007 to Spring 2008

IT WAS LATE fall and Norbert was in Bangkok on business when he got the news he had been anxiously waiting for, knowing a court decision was imminent on Golden Gate’s claim to be Alinghi’s Challenger of Record.

“We won!” Judy Sim said. “We are the Challenger of Record. The court concluded that the Golden Gate is the legitimate challenger.”

Norbert was thrilled. The Golden Gate Yacht Club had been to Auckland. It had been to Valencia. Now it was being heard in New York’s Supreme Court and it looked as if it would be getting another chance at that elusive Cup. “Third time’s going to be a charm,” Norbert said, as his radiator buddies lingered nearby.

It was a huge win for Oracle Racing, after motions and cross motions and letters from seven challengers strongly opposed to Alinghi’s new protocol. Russell Coutts had been trying hard to negotiate a settlement based on reinstating the old protocol, something all of the challenging teams would willingly accept. He had even written to his former boss, Bertarelli, and his best friend and sailing buddy, Brad Butterworth, who remained with Alinghi: “Time is running out, and a key requirement for all competitors is certainty,” Coutts wrote. “If there are any points in this proposal that are unacceptable to you we would ask that you negotiate these with us as soon as possible. We are approaching a point where we have to know what sort of race we will be competing in. It is simply not feasible to carry on trying to be prepared for both a conventional regatta and a Deed of Gift race. Accordingly, we request that you indicate if you accept [our challenge] as soon as possible.”

Alinghi didn’t reply. But Bertarelli continued to criticize Coutts in the press and blame him for Larry’s decision to sue, saying, “Russell Coutts wins by destroying,” pointing to his defection from Team New Zealand to Alinghi. “He destroyed Team New Zealand and he tried to destroy Alinghi,” Bertarelli went on. “And now he is destroying the America’s Cup. He is destroying the game that gave him everything.”

In the eighteen-page judgment in favor of the Golden Gate, Justice Herman Cahn found that the Spanish yacht club had no clubhouse, no telephone number, no members, no Web site, and no races on the all-important arm of the sea. He wrote: “The deed expressly requires one specific attribute, namely, that the club have an annual regatta.”

Norbert returned to the meeting, where he had been listening to colleagues talk about problems customers were having with aluminum radiators. A handful of the top radiator distributors from across the United States and Canada were in Thailand to attend the meetings and Norbert was there in part to talk with the company that made the radiators sold by Alouis in San Francisco.

Norbert figured that while Fresh Burns and Tugsy and the Oracle Racing designers and engineers focused on the latest in boat design, he needed to concentrate on the inner workings of cars.

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