Cruise Control

If you liked Jon Gruden in “Taming the Black Hole,” you’ll love Russell Coutts in “The Kiwi Who Came In From the Cold,” now playing in Auckland, New Zealand. They are parallel tales.

As a 4 1/2-month scenario plays out to a climax, the skipper of the boats that won the America’s Cup for New Zealand at San Diego in 1995 and successfully defended it in 2000 is now positioned to spirit it away from his homeland for European parts unknown.

That means sailing Switzerland’s Alinghi challenger to five wins against the team and the country that once held his heart and soul -- and hasn’t let him forget about it. However, the bitter debate on whether Coutts and the core of the former crew that left with him did it for the money or to avoid a power struggle within Team New Zealand is less important, now that there is serious sailing to be done.

For what it’s worth, offshore bookmakers who actually take bets on sailboat racing offer odds favoring Team New Zealand, although defections to Alinghi and two of the American teams have depleted the defenders of three years ago. The last six America’s Cup matches, starting with Australia’s victory at Newport, R.I., in 1983, have been split between defenders and challengers, 3-3.

Five wins amounted to an unimpeded cakewalk for Coutts & Co. in ’95 and again in 2000, but this time there’s a wild card in the deck: the “hula.” That’s the nickname given the controversial appendage attached to the aft section of the New Zealand boat’s hull. Picture the hood of a ‘70s vintage Lincoln Continental stapled to the bottom of a Ferrari and you get the idea. Supposedly, it makes the boat faster, but nobody outside Team New Zealand knows for sure because the defenders haven’t raced anybody yet.

Curiously, while lambasting Coutts as a “traitor,” Kiwi loyalists ignore that their principal designer is American Clay Oliver, a former U.S. Naval Academy student. Explaining the hula’s function, Oliver told the New Zealand Herald: “The hula’s job is actually to try to reduce the wave resistance. If the boat’s ghosting along at 3 knots of boat speed, there’s no waves so the hula’s not doing anything. If you’re doing 14 knots, it’s doing quite a lot.”

Some of his peers say it’s a flat-out violation.

“I think it is an atrocity that this has been allowed by the measurers to get through the rules,” said Bruce Farr, who designed the boats sailed by Oracle BMW, which lost to Alinghi in the challenger finals. “If you look carefully through the rules, there are plenty which indicate it is not supposed to be there.”

One known Team New Zealand quantity is Coutts’ successor, Dean Barker, whose match-racing skills are regarded by many as equal or superior to those of the master. In 2000, Coutts turned the boat over to Barker for the final clinching race against Italy’s Prada, and it was Barker who hoisted the Cup high in a triumphant tour of the harbor as tens of thousands of Kiwi supporters cheered.

This time, Coutts also kept as low a profile as possible as Alinghi rolled through the challenger opposition. The Swiss boat, with Americans Josh Belsky and John Barnitt among the crew, won 26 of 30 races and blitzed the Oracle BMW team from San Francisco, 9-1, in the last two sail-off series.

Never mind that the only Swiss on board is Ernesto Bertarelli, the 37-year-old pharmaceutical heir who pays the bills. Bertarelli, who has a master’s in business administration from Harvard, has been a sailor since childhood but is content -- and smart enough -- to serve a quietly subservient role to Coutts as navigator. If Alinghi wins, though, it will be Bertarelli’s responsibility to make a decision of monumental proportions: Where to defend the Cup?

America’s Cup races are sailed on oceans, and Switzerland is landlocked. The yacht club Alinghi represents is the Societe Nautique de Geneve on Lake Geneva.

Most insiders believe it would be in the event’s best interests to move to Europe, which has held the Cup only long enough to hand it over to the schooner America after the first race, around the Isle of Wight, in 1851.

Bertarelli has tried to avoid the issue as premature, although in an interview with the Geneva daily “Le Temps,” he mentioned the ports of Naples, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Lisbon and Saint Tropez as possible venues.

“It is a relatively complicated process,” he said. “We have started to think about it. The first concern is the weather, then the logistics. If we bring the event to Europe, it has to be done on the large scale that a great sporting festival deserves.”

If Alinghi wins, there could be a spontaneous explosion of unsolicited bids similar to the selection process for Olympic Games venues. New Zealand became a magnificent venue for the Cup by providing new infrastructure for the syndicate bases, a small but enthusiastic population and a ready-made sailing arena, the Hauraki Gulf. The people are extraordinarily friendly, sailing is a popular sport and the country is high-tech and beautiful. Although slightly larger than California, it has only 10% of the inhabitants.

Therein lies the downside. New Zealand is not only remote but less than a strong market for sponsors. Some teams have indicated they will not challenge again until the Cup moves to Europe.

Bruno Trouble, a former competitor for France and an influential management figure in the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger trials for 20 years, suggested that the America’s Cup wouldn’t be a truly big event again until it’s sailed in European waters. “If the Cup stays here, I don’t think we will have more than six to eight challengers [in 2006],” he said in Auckland. “If the Cup goes to Europe, there will be 12 challengers, at least. It will be a huge deal in Europe. We will reach another level in terms of owners, media coverage and interest.”

Paul Cayard, a competitor in five America’s Cups, would have preferred seeing it on San Francisco Bay, but between the remaining possibilities he has no doubts.

“Europe,” he said. “Mind you, it’s gonna be way more expensive to do an America’s Cup in Europe, but the commercial aspects will more than make up for that.”

Where in Europe?

That may be a question for another day. First, it’s up to Coutts to do his Chucky thing and close the business at hand.

*

America’s Cup

TEAM NEW ZEALAND

* Representing -- Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron

* Record -- 5-0 vs.Team Dennis Conner in successful 1995 challenge; 5-0 vs. Prada Challenge in 2000 defense; has not raced in 2002-03.

* Skipper -- Dean Barker

ALINGHI

* Representing -- Societe Nautique de Geneve, Switzerland

* Record -- 26 wins, 4 losses in Louis Vuitton Cup challenger trials

* Skipper -- Russell Coutts

*

THE RACE

* Format -- Best-of-nine series

* Course -- Windward-leeward three miles, three times around, total 18.5 miles

* Boats -- International America’s Cup Class, 75 feet long, 110-foot masts, 16-man crews

* Schedule -- (U.S. dates, 4:15 p.m. PST) Race 1, today; Race 2, Saturday; Race 3, Monday; Race 4: Wednesday; Race 5, Feb. 21; Race 6, Feb. 22*; Race 7, Feb. 24*; Race 8, Feb. 26*; Race 9, Feb. 28*

* TV -- ESPN2

*If necessary