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One Design For The America’s Cup!
01 Apr 2015
Martin Whitmarsh has been trying to get away from Bernie for years…
APRIL 1, 2015: The America’s Cup is famous for many things… including high seas and shore based drama and skullduggery.
But Tuesday’s vote on the boat to be used in 2017 puts everything in the past to the status of minor footnotes.
The next America’s Cup will be sailed on AC45s… but they will be One Design and supplied by a single builder, Green Marine in the UK. Each team will purchase two boats for a total of 10m pounds.
Sails to be supplied by as yet-to-be-named sailmaker but will also be subject to strict one design rules.
The cost savings to teams are going to be huge. A full one campaign could cost as little as £25 to £30 million, including salaries and travel, said one America’s Cup source.
“This is the game changer to beat all others” said Sir Russell Coutts. “Finally the America’s Cup will be properly focused on sailing skills and not whatever titanium-molybdenum-unobtainium composite honeycomb someone comes up with at 10K per square centimetre.”
All eyes were on Luna Rossa supremo Patrizio Bertelli, who last week warned that the Prada sponsored team would leave the America’s Cup entirely if the proposed AC62 was not chosen.
“We’re in!” was Bertelli’s comments at a hastily convened press conference at the Formula 1 Group headquarters in Geneva.
In a doubly shocking day, Bertelli said: “the cost savings are so immense that I’ve decided to not only compete, and win, the 2017 America’s Cup, but Prada will also sponsor a new Italian Formula 1 team and we are in discussions with Silvio Berlusconi for a revived Mille Miglia in 2016. We hope to get Bernie [Ecclestone] out for a spin on an AC45 at Cagliari soon.”
A visibly distraught Martin Whitmarsh spoke to reporters from the BAR base in Southampton: “I left Formula 1 to get away from Ecclestone and others that have turned the pinnacle of motorsports into a billionaires’ Death Race 2000. God save this sport now…”
Readers; please bear in mind the date of this story published in Scuttlebutt Europe today…