Now, let me start by saying I’m not really that interested in the America’s Cup – especially in its current “condition”. I enjoy actual sailing – not all the elitist political crap surrounding a litigious morass that just happens to produce a bit of sailing every few years.

But, I just watched Tom Ehman’s show where he was talking with Richard Gladwell about the exit of World Sailing’s CEO, Andy Hunt. Actually I think Skype-based grave dancing would probably be a more accurate description of what was going on.

Watching Old Blue-Blazer Dudes get all smug in their parlors has never been that interesting. But here we are…

For a bit of context, Gladwell wrote an article on this whole thing – essentially throwing serious shade at Hunt as is clear by the title…

“America’s Cup: World Sailing CEO’s Sneaky Move Backfires”
(I’m not going to link to it here because I think its a huge load of embittered BS.)

The upcoming America’s Cup is quickly turning into “The Greatest Embarrassment on Water”. So keen on returning to the “classic monohull” after several AC iterations of whinging about multis, the Emiratis and the Italianos insisted on singularity in “The Rule”. And we were “back to the good old days”. But…not quite…

“So, now that we have reverted back to yesteryear – how about this to make it all seem more ‘modern’!?!?!? Let’s get rid of stability, add some incredibly stupid-looking mechanical appendages hanging off the side, stick foils on the end of those appendages to render the hull configuration meaningless anyway, and make this ‘new thing called a wing sail’….you know, like Herreshoff did a hundred plus years ago! Brilliant! That’s progress!”