If my kids pulled some of

the stunts I did, they would

have been packed off to military

school some place where it snows.

Did you see the America’s

Cup races last Month?

Neither did I.

The races—all two of them between Alinghi and BMW Oracle—were not broadcast on American TV although 39 TV channels acquired rights to broadcast the races to the rest of the world. I don’t know who’s running the networks here—must be a bunch of round ball guys. The only way you could watch Oracle clobber Alinghi here was as a jerky streaming video download on a computer screen. ESPN.com just had snips of video: That’s certainly not the way I like to watch yachting.

I hope the next Cup is sailed in boats of more practical size with sails instead of wings. I hope it’s on TV.

The Deed of Gift Match capped a two and a-half-year period of legal wrangling between a Swiss and an American billionaire. Their money made it possible to design and build two extraordinary multi-hulls and in the end, the Americans triumphed with the better technology (and maybe better lawyers as well).
From my perspective, this Cup was a freak show and I hope we’ve seen the end of it. I’m just glad the Cup is back in the USA after its 15-year absence, and for that I’ll thank Oracle boss Larry Ellison and his hired guns.
The Cup should look pretty nice at the Golden Gate Yacht Club, but I hope the next Cup is sailed in boats of more practical size with sails instead of wings. And for the 70 million Americans who go boating, I hope it’s on TV.
Speaking of boats of a practical size, there were some great new boats at the Miami International Boat Show that our team found appealing and it was fascinating to see the 12,000-horsepower Phenomenon, designed to be the world’s fastest boat, at the same show where production boat builders were scaling back on horsepower and touting multi-use vessels. That’s the great thing about boating—it’s got something for everyone!