LOUIS VUITTON CUP SEMI-FINALS F
GILLES MARTIN-RAGET
or the third time in as many contests, there will be no 'America' in the America's Cup. The nation's sole hope, Larry Ellison's BMW Oracle Racing, was eliminated in the semi-final round of the challenger trials last month by Italy's Luna Rossa Challenge. It was, to say the least, an ignoble end to one of the flashier syndicates in America's Cup history. After the last Cup in 2003, Ellison immediately filed to become the Challenger of Record for this one. Then he 'went under the hood' with Ernesto Bertarelli of the Cup-winning Swiss Alinghi team, to revitalize the event. They came up with a series of regattas, called Acts, to be held in a handful of venues worldwide in the four-year gap between Cup races. They even made provisions for the winners of the last few Acts to carry over 1 to 4 bonus points into the 'official' Louis Vuitton challenger series. The goal was to keep the America's Cup and its colorful boats in the eye of sponsors and the public, and this it accomplished well. Perhaps the greatest irony of this Cup Below, the victor and the vanquished — 'Luna Rossa' (red bow) pulled no punches in beating 'BMW Oracle' 5 races to 1. Inset, right above, 'BOR' skipper Chris Dickson (right) congratulates 'Luna Rossa's James Spithill (left) and Francesco di Angelis.
series so far is that, in cocreating the Acts, Ellison also unwittingly became the engineer of his own demise.
GILLES MARTIN-RAGET
T
o catch you up, in the opening rounds of the Louis Vuitton Cup, BMW Oracle looked unstoppable, both on paper and on the water. In these 'Round Robins', each of the 11 challenging syndicates match raced each other once per round, for two rounds. Each win counted for 1 point. At the end, the top four boats moved on to the semi-final round. Everybody else went home. 'BOR' and Emirates Team New Zealand were the clear favorites going into the Round Robins, and they did not disap-
point — each ended the 20-race series with 17 wins and only 3 losses (including one to each other). But they weren't really tied. Remember those points carried over from the Acts? ETNZ had 4 and BOR only 3, which made the Kiwis kings of the Round Robin hill with 38 points to BOR's 37. Rounding out the top four were Luna Rossa Challenge (16 wins/4 losses; 35 points) and Spain's Desafio Español 2007 (13/7; 29). The top score meant ETNZ — which, despite sponsorship from Dubai-based Emirates Airlines, is a diehard Kiwi effort — got to choose which of the four boats they would match race in the semi-final round. Being of sound mind, they chose the 'weakest' team, Desafio Espanol. That left BOR to face Luna Rossa. To set the stage, BOR's new USA 98 had beaten Luna Rossa's new ITA 94 in both of their meetings in the Round Robins. But perhaps more importantly, Luna Rossa syndicate head (and chairman of fashion jugger naut Prada) Patrizio Bertelli has always brought a solid program to the America's Cup. You