America’s Cup, my ass

A real sailboat: Pacific Seacraft 40

You can find a thousand descriptions of what a “real sailor” is, but most agree he/she is someone who can take a boat across oceans, perhaps by virtue of having actually done so. Knowledge, sea smarts, prudence, foresight, tolerance of discomfort, joy in the achievement all come into play.

The sailing world holds two kinds of sailors, the ones who race and the ones who cruise. The ones who cruise look down on the racers as people who wrench the design of a sailboat into forms designed to live fast for a day. They sacrifice seaworthiness to pursue what the cruisers dismiss as “go-fast techniques”: ever-more-high tech sails, bizarre keels, onboard computers, even encrypted communication with onshore computer strategists.

Since the first America’s Cup, the boats have been mostly the darlings of rich men on shore, sailed by hired help, in the early days by death-defying crews of immigrants from seagoing nations, these days by a kind of sophisticated boat bum. A pretense of national pride, the sort that pervades the Olympic Games, was supposed to be part of the deal. In fact, the race is a race of corporate sponsorship.

This year’s example is a kind of low point. Sports Illustrated reports the America’s Cup “recaptured” by the BMW Oracle Racing team, sailing USA-17, a 90-foot trimaran (a three-hulled boat), against Alinghi of Switzerland and their catamaran (two hulls).

The race was hard-fought, said SI, before the boats even hit the water. Oracle’s backer had spent nearly two years in court, first for the right to challenge Alinghi (corporations are people, in case you haven’t heard, and now have a right to fight over money, or the chance to make money, in court). A later fight came over boat construction rules and the right to deploy a 223-foot wing sail.

These are not real boats, sailed by real sailors. A catamaran or trimaran  is a liability at sea, with multiple hulls to monitor and repair and the danger of overturning (a stout cruising sailboat will right itself, the catamaran becomes an upside-down raft). There are those who go to sea in one, but there are fools on every moorage, put there to make us better sailors.

I enjoyed the first TV broadcasts of America’s Cup races, back in the 80s, when they seemed more like real boats, before the endless litigation and dreary money-grubbing was involved.

But they can’t really spoil sailing. Kids still race small boats in college competitions among class boats, and there are still honorable international competitions for small boats, even the venerable Snipe, the boat I learned in.

Across the country, sailing is alive and well in a younger generation. And real sailors are still going to sea.