There is no second place in this race that's dominated by the US

24 May 2017 - 11:19 By Archie Henderson
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"The Yacht 'America' Winning the International Race," oil on canvas, by the American artist Fitz Hugh Lane. Courtesy of the Peabody Collection.
"The Yacht 'America' Winning the International Race," oil on canvas, by the American artist Fitz Hugh Lane. Courtesy of the Peabody Collection.
Image: via Wikimedia commons

When Queen Victoria was a spectator at what was to become the world's oldest international sporting confrontation, she would not have been amused.

A schooner from New York, the America, embarrassed the world's greatest sailing nation by winning the Hundred Guinea Cup on August 20 1851 in a race around the Isle of Wight.

"So we came second," the queen - then just 33 - was said to have remarked.

"No ma'am," replied an equerry. "There is no second place."

The Americans made sure of taking it all. For the next 132 years they manipulated the rules, always ensured home-port advantage and even changed the name of the race to the America's Cup. The trophy is the oldest in world sport.

It took a remarkable sailor in Russell Coutts and his bunch of New Zealanders to prise the cup from the Americans in 1995. They repeated the feat in 2000 before Switzerland won in 2007. For the landlocked Swiss to have won showed how the US had relaxed the rules.

Playing within the new rules the US won it back in 2010 and retained it in 2013 with Oracle Team USA. That meant the next America's Cup would be sailed in US waters. San Diego and Chicago were eager to host it, but Larry Ellison, owner of Oracle, and Coutts, now head of the America's Cup event authority, gave it to Bermuda.

There was outrage. A US businessman who had led San Diego's unsuccessful bid said the race had been prostituted. His and other objections were shrugged off, which is why from Friday until June 27 the 35th America's Cup will be sailed in British waters, 166 years after the last time this happened.

Bermuda also got it for a song, if you consider how much cities and nations get ripped off today to stage an Olympic Games or a football World Cup.

The little archipelago, one of the 14 remaining bits of the empire known as British Overseas Territories, paid $15-million (R196-million).

And it's hard to think of a more suitable venue for a yacht race. Even Table Bay on a good day, such as it was this week, does not come close. This America's Cup will take place in a sailing stadium.

The 19km course is up and down Bermuda's Great Sound that provides views on both sides and brings the action in as close as any football game. Coutts says this "stadium-style sailing" will increase the spectacle for spectators and TV audiences.

One of the rules that was scrapped required the challenging boats to sail to the venue. Now these are flown in, and they also fly over the water, or give the illusion of it.

With arcane foiling systems, computers and hydraulics these catamarans are a far cry from the old schooner that set up the America's Cup.

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