Cup Class is Planned Obsolescence

Why, for heaven’s sake, is it going to take almost five months to determine who wins the America’s Cup next year?

Having seen what has transpired over the last few days in the fleet racing segment of the America’s Cup Class World Championships, it occurs to me that this whole issue could be resolved in a day or two of continuous racing.

I would propose that the whole field be put to sea en masse, the winner being the last boat that has not dumped its mast or snapped its boom or blown every sail it could pack. It would probably take a matter of hours.

If America’s Cup ’92 is going to be a matter of attrition and luck, let’s simply put it all on the line at once and save all those months of hype and hoopla.

These ACC boats are like eggshells with toothpicks for masts and tissue paper for sails. They are like floating feathers. Going to sea with these yachts is like going to war with destroyers made of balsa.

The way this regatta started Saturday, it would be a miracle if four boats were still afloat (or at least equipped) for the semifinals that begin Friday. On the first day, a mast was snapped, a boom broke, another boom snapped, a jib track ripped from a deck and one man was knocked overboard. It looked like a demolition derby.

Panhandlers populate every street corner and empty doorway downtown, and this one day of sailing probably created $750,000 to $800,000 in damage to yachts worthless for anything but this competition.

That Day of the Big Blow was the most damaging, to be sure, but the nine-boat fleet has blown enough spinnakers in five races to rebuild the Convention Center’s equally gone-with-the-wind roof.

Given such fragile craft, weather and good fortune will play prominent roles this week . . . and next year, for that matter.

In that race Saturday, Spain, America-3’s Jayhawk and Japan failed to finish because of assorted problems. But for their misfortunes in those bad weather conditions, all would have fared considerably better in the fleet racing. Japan and Jayhawk might well have finished in the top four.

Woe to misfortune.

Jayhawk ran into bad luck again Wednesday, blowing a spinnaker early in the race. It ended up in a battle for eighth place and lost that because mechanical problems near the finish line. The difference between eighth and ninth was the difference between fifth and sixth in the fleet racing.

“I thought was had a great day on Jayhawk, as you probably all observed,” said tactician Buddy Melges, tongue firmly in cheek. “Each day, we try to go out and bring back more of the boat. We brought back more of the boat today than we expected.”

That, in truth, was what everyone had to address, bringing back as much of the boats as possible.

A bigger issue is at hand.

Bill Koch, the president of America-3, has said these boats are “incredibly dangerous” and called the designers “idiots.” He was half-right. You cannot really fault the designers for putting together boats within the specifications of the class.

However, the danger is real.

These is potential for bodily harm when masts start snapping and spinnaker poles start exploding. There has been speculation that a collision between two of these boats would veritably splinter the hulls with potential for serious consequence. That scenario did not occur during the fleet racing, when it might have been most likely.

What these designers have been attempting to do, and will continue to attempt to do, is probe for the outer limits of fragility. To get maximum speed, they need boats on which masts almost break and poles almost shatter and booms almost crack. They need spinnakers that almost blow.

Almost.

We’re talking the finest of lines, where white turns to black.

What’s noteworthy, however, is that these boats have been subjected to such breakage in what figured to be a conservative competition. Everyone involved has stressed that this is an exercise in experimentation. Everyone has protested that this is merely a learning experience.

Virtually every skipper in a press conference late Wednesday talked of the educational experience. Paul Cayard, skipper of Il Moro di Venezia (ITA-15), called it “experimentational.” Fine, we knew what he meant.

In that sense, the semifinals get another day of education Friday, and the finalists get yet another on Saturday.

In the aftermath of this competition, a few months will be spent looking for that breaking point. One designer, in fact, suggested the best-designed boat would be the one that falls apart just beyond the finish line.

Excellent idea.

Put ‘em all out there next January and give the America’s Cup to the last one that falls apart.