Fisher's View: Boys and Girls, come out to play.

4:51 PM Wed 10 Feb 2010 GMT

'Bob Fisher' Daniel Forster

Bob Fisher reviews the second lost Race Day in the 33rd America's Cup:

I've said it before and I'll say it again - the decision making around the 33rd America's Cup sucks. The twisted thinking that underpins this excruciating morass of verbiage began its foment of disaster before the last America's Cup was completed. We were destined to a miserable existence long before the handsome silver ewer was replaced in its glass-fronted cabinet at the SNG.

Specifically we're doomed by the only point of mutual agreement in the Sailing Instructions where the Deed of Gift has been adjusted. The Deed states: ' The club challenging for the Cup and the club lodging the same may, by mutual consent, make any arrangements satisfactory to both as to the dates, courses, number of trials, rules and sailing regulations. . . '

Somewhere along the line, the two parties did reach mutual agreement to modify the Deed's requirement of one clear day after a completed race to become, per SI 5.4: 'If a race is cancelled, abandoned or postponed that race will be sailed on the next scheduled date and the subsequent races shall be postponed accordingly.' And this is why the event is a mockery of a regatta.

Or partly. Item 6.7 of the Notice of Race that limited racing taking place only within certain winds and wave heights, was repealed and no longer appears. But the 15 knots at 60 metres and waves of no more than one metre in height still hangs in the shadows and undoubtedly affects the philosophy of the race committee.

No one would want PRO Harold Bennett's job. He is in an invidious position, shackled by the very frailty of these giant multihulls. Their commissioning teams should not have gone down the frailty line knowing that the Deed requires: 'races shall be on ocean courses, free from headlands.' Instead they should have designed and built boats suitable for ocean courses and not hidden behind a safety belt.

And this could go on forever. The requirement of a clear day between scheduled races, due to end on Sunday, has been the subject of another foot-shooting exercise. The teams, for some inexplicably crazy reason have decided to continue to nominate scheduled race days. That decision does nothing but extend the boredom that currently surrounds the 33rd America's Cup.

One could forgive Harold Bennett if he were to take the committee boat out to the starting area, set up the course and fire the starting signals and leave it to the competitors to decide whether or not they were prepared to race. It would most definitely allow George Schuyler to rest more comfortably in his grave.

'The course is the challenge,' said Bennett publicly, and that was the case on Monday when the shifts in the wind over the 20-mile leg were considered to be unfair. But this is and ocean course of 20 miles, not an Olympic course with one-mile legs, one must expect oscillations on a 20-mile leg, and if the wind shifts, so be it.

As I said, I have said this before, and until common sense is reached I shall be guilty of repeating myself. Get out and race and prepare yourselves for every eventuality. This is meant to be the pinnacle of our sport - stop behaving like a bunch of silly wusses.

by Bob Fisher

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