Larry and Ernie, I’m ashamed. A few years ago, when Alinghi went down under to grab the cup, you looked as smart people, and sailing had some luck to have you on board. With your money, the medias started to look at sailing and they said : “hey, that sport is cool”.
Our local clubs saw floods of young people starting in the Optimist class, we even had to refuse a few of them.
Colleagues that previously knew nothing about sailing started to ask question about carbon, kevlar, big-head sails and “how the hell can they sail against the wind?”
Fast-forward to 2007. Alinghi kept the cup. The SNG in Geneva finishes a new building to show it to the masses, and the world is turning its head away from sailing, journalists can’t wrote anything smart anymore, and my colleagues ask no questions anymore, beside “hey what happens with the cup, are they nuts?”
Could you please consider once in your life that you may have gone overboard? That maybe our wonderful sport can live without you two? That your egos have nearly destroyed the oldest trophy in sport?
I start to think that I will simply respond “no comment” when people ask me about the cup. Just because there is nothing more to say right now. By the way : I’m Swiss, and I’m not proud of having the cup here anymore.
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