Is it really possible that I haven’t written at all yet about the America’s Cup fiasco unfolding in San Francisco? Okay (deep breath), in short: Noted California rich guy Larry Ellison won the America’s Cup last time, which gives him the right to decide where and how the next one would be held, and he picked San Francisco Bay this summer, for which the city of San Francisco gave up more than $20 million in cash plus a bunch of free waterfront land because Ellison said it would create jobs, and then a New Zealand Swedish boat capsized and a sailor died and there were calls for safer rudder elevators (which I’m guessing is a boat term for something that, um, elevates the rudder?) and the New Zealand team protested that that would give Ellison’s boat an unfair advantage, and now a five-member international jury has ruled in favor of the New Zealand team which means the race may have to be delayed or even cancelled if it can’t get a new safety permit from the Coast Guard, and there are already only four teams racing instead of the expected 15, and, and…
Anyway, this gives me the opportunity to post one of the pictures I took during my California vacation last week, when I happened to be on a cross-Bay ferry when one of the America’s Cup boats sailed by. Lookit the pretty boat! Don’t you feel better now?
