A quiet day in Valencia

I know that I am one of a number of sailing writers who have given the latest America's Cup a wide birth. If two competing squillionnaires and their giant state-of-the-art catamarans want to contest ownership of the oldest trophy in international sport in relative privacy off the coast of Valencia, that's fine. But they should not assume much interest from the rest of the world.

The lack of event-sponsor interest from business might suggest that the contestants are reviving the Corinthian spirit. Far from it. Corinthianism is founded on sportsmanship and there is nothing sporting in this latest cup challenge. As far as I can gauge from all the court hearings preceding the contest, the event has become a money-no-object willy-waving exercise between a couple of over-inflated egos that have become detached from the inclusiveness that characterises most great sporting events.

The professional teams who are sailing these yachts don't care about the personal vendettas much. They're happy to be paid to go head-to-head in a best of three encounter that, if nothing else, really does involve a battle of cutting-edge sailing technologies. In that respect it would not at all surprise me to see a bit of carnage out there. Some extreme forces are involved and it wouldn't take much to tip one of these machines at full throttle.

So it was with a sense of reluctant curiosity that I took a peak at what was happening in the first race. After all it has taken millions of dollars, umpteen court appearances and whole series of "on,off" announcements to arrive at this day. And what an anticlimax it proved to be as the first day of racing was postponed due to a lack of wind. I suppose we should have seen that coming.