Cloud of Litigation Hovers Over a Sunny Competition

by Angus Phillips, Washington Post on 18 Feb 2009
The Louis Vuitton Pacific Series showed over the past two weeks how good an offseason event in America's Cup boats can be. Under the loom of volcanic Rangitoto Island, with the city skyline scraping the clouds, 10 teams of the world's best sailors traded tacks, jibes, barbs and laughs in a friendly competition in towering Cup boats that got better as it rolled along.

Kiwi arch rivals and onetime bosom buddies Russell Coutts of the U.S. entry BMW Oracle and Brad Butterworth on Swiss Alinghi wound up facing each other in challenger finals on windy Waitemata Harbor. Alinghi's 2-0 win sent them on to a best-of-five rerun of their successful 2007 Cup match against Emirates Team New Zealand. You couldn't write a better script.

Kiwi fans crowded the harbor; TV and radio crews beamed the action around the nation and the Internet sent it to the world. It was the sort of upbeat sailing spectacle that in normal times would start the ball rolling toward America's Cup 33.

But 1 1/2 years after 11 teams converged on Valencia, Spain, to compete for the world's oldest sporting trophy, nobody knows when, where or in what boats the next Cup will be. The confusion, coupled with global financial woes, leaves many teams struggling just to survive.

The Cup's future hangs in limbo in New York's highest court, where six justices strain to interpret the intent of a 121-year-old Deed of Gift. Litigants are a pair of bilious, warring billionaires.

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