You've worked hard. You've made millions, billions even, the fruits and rewards from years of building your business empire. And then you want to blow more than $100 million on a yacht race. There is no prize money at stake. The reward for winning is an ugly, somewhat too ornate trophy known as the Auld Mug. Such is the strange allure of the America's Cup, and it attracts some of the world's wealthiest businessmen who will stop at nothing to win a competition that the average man in the street has never heard of. Take Larry Ellison, for example, the ebullient software tycoon from San Francisco, and estimated by Forbes Magazine last year to be the 15th wealthiest man on the planet with a fortune of $16 billion. Having failed to win the last America's Cup in New Zealand four years ago, his racing team BMW Oracle Racing is reputed to be spending close to $200 million in pursuit of winning this year's event in Valencia, Spain.


So what exactly is the attraction for men like Ellison? After all, he's richer than Croesus and can buy virtually anything he wants. He's already got the 454-foot luxury supercruiser and a fleet of private jet planes. Perhaps that's the point though. While money can buy you most things, it can't buy you love and it can't buy you the America's Cup (although a few hundred million dollars certainly helps).

Another part of the allure is the history, the mystique that swirls around the event, the oldest prize in sport. Aside from being the most prestigious regatta in the rarefied world of yacht racing, the America's Cup stretches back 156 years, longer even than the modern Olympic Games. The greatest contest in sailing was established in 1851 in a gentlemen's race around the Isle of Wight off the south coast of England. A yacht visiting from the United States, John Cox Stevens' black schooner called America, defeated a fleet of 14 British yachts in controversial circumstances.

And so the America's Cup was born - named after the yacht and not the country, as many wrongly assume. It's an easy mistake to make, because after America took the Auld Mug back to the New York Yacht Club (NYYC), the trophy remained bolted down in the Club's trophy room for the next 132 years. While that first race was a fleet race involving 15 yachts racing together, the event evolved into a match race regatta, which entails a series of one-on-one contests, yachting's equivalent of a boxing tournament. The Americans proved very good at this aggressive form of racing, and it seemed as though the America's Cup would remain the NYYC's property for an eternity. Challengers came from far and wide in a bid to prise the Cup away from the defenders, but the Americans always proved too fast and too strong.


The tipping point finally came in 1983 when a radical yacht called Australia II showed up in Newport with what were believed to be wings on her keel. No one could be quite sure, because the Australians were very careful to enshroud the yacht's underbelly in a ‘skirt' whenever she was lifted out of the water, to keep prying eyes away. Dennis Conner steered the New York Yacht Club's entry, Liberty, as effectively as he could, but she Liberty was no match for the slippery Australia II. It was a nailbiter of a series, decided in the dying throes of the final race, but for the first time since 1851 the Americans had been outgunned. And yes, when the skirts were lifted, there were wings on Australia II's keel.

Another unique appeal of the America's Cup is that the winner chooses the venue in which the next regatta is to be staged. So when Australia II won in Newport, the Auld Mug was finally and somewhat reluctantly unbolted from the trophy room in the New York Yacht Club and moved to the Royal Perth Yacht Club in Western Australia.

It was here that Conner would gain his revenge four years later when he won the Cup back at a windy and wavy regatta on the wild blue waters of the Indian Ocean. With Conner now representing the San Diego Yacht Club, the event moved to the South Californian coast until the New Zealand team snatched the Auld Mug away to the other side of the Pacific in 1995. The Cup has not returned to the USA since.

 

Currently the America's Cup resides in Valencia, Spain, and yet a Spanish team has never come close to winning. At the last event in New Zealand four years ago, a Swiss team Alinghi, owned by pharmaceutical billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli, won the Cup from the Kiwis. For the first time in more than 150 years, the Cup was returning to Europe. However, the rules of the event dictate that racing must take place on the sea, on salt water. With Switzerland being a land-locked country, there was no choice but for Bertarelli to select a venue elsewhere in Europe. A bidding war ensued and Valencia paid a handsome price for the honour of hosting the 32nd America's Cup.

This will be the most hotly contested event in the Cup's long history. Twelve teams from five continents have been hard in training for the past three years, all intent on taking the event to their own corner of the globe. There are first-time entries from nations such as China, Germany and South Africa, but surprisingly only one from America - BMW Oracle Racing, representing the Golden Gate Yacht Club in San Francisco. Only one American challenge there may be, but Larry Ellison's team poses one of the greatest threats to Alinghi's defence of the Cup. BMW Oracle Racing is believed to be the best-funded team in the event and appears to want for nothing. Although only 17 crew sail on the 80-foot carbon-fiber race boat, the team numbers more than 140 when you count in the rest of the sailing team - the boat builders, sailmakers, physical trainers, cooks, marketing and admin staff.

Each of the 12 teams has built a base around Port America's Cup on the outskirts of Valencia. Two years ago, this was a dirty, industrial shipping port - and indeed a good deal of the Valencian waterfront still is - but the event organisers have transformed part of the port into a spectacular harbour, with all manner of restaurant and entertainment facilities hastily constructed for the thousands of spectators expected to visit the America's Cup this summer.

Of the 12 team bases, the most impressive are those of Alinghi and BMW Oracle. While Alinghi has a full-size sailing simulator where the public can get a sense of what it's like to sail on board one of these magnificent yachts, BMW Oracle's more private base boasts its own 100-seat cinema. A state-of-the-art gym helps keeps the sailors in the best shape of their lives, and an enormous air-conditioned hangar is large enough to house two fully-operational race yachts.

So, what of BMW Oracle's chances? There is no doubt that Larry Ellison has assembled a strong team for this, his second assault on the Cup. In Auckland four years ago, the team made it through to the finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup, the knockout series that determines which Challenger earns the right to go up against the Defender. Alinghi beat the Americans with relative ease in the Challenger final and went on to crush Team New Zealand 5-0 in the America's Cup Match itself.

Oracle - as the team was known then - was dogged by internal battles within the team, and many observers believed intense Kiwi skipper Chris Dickson was a big part of the problem. However, while other high-profile sailors came and went from the team, Ellison showed unstinting loyalty to his mercurial skipper and Dickson remains in charge for Valencia. The team has not been without its internal wrangles this time, but for the past year or so things appear more settled in the team. With Frenchman Bertrand Pacé calling tactics and American Peter Isler doing the navigation, the cosmopolitan crew aboard BMW Oracle appears to have found a team dynamic that works.

However, the other part of the equation is boatspeed. The question of whether or not the massive design team led by Bruce Farr has delivered a boat fast enough to beat the other top Challengers, and of course Alinghi, remains to be seen. Last year's new boat USA-87 looked radical, very manoeuvrable, but not quite fast enough to win the Cup. The hope is that the team's next boat, USA-98, will give the sailing team the edge they seek. Of the 10 other challenging teams, BMW Oracle's stiffest competition is expected to come from Luna Rossa, the Italian team owned by Prada fashion tycoon Patrizio Bertelli, and Emirates Team New Zealand, with the Kiwis still smarting from that 5-0 humiliation at the hands of Alinghi four years ago. Getting through to the America's Cup will be tough in itself, but that is only half the battle. Alinghi is looking as invincible as ever. The land-locked nation of Switzerland remains favourite to retain the America's Cup.

For a man that has scaled the highest peaks of the business world, it seems unthinkable that Larry Ellison should not be able to win a mere yacht race. The prospect of bringing the Cup back to America, and particularly to such a spectacular venue as San Francisco Bay, is truly mouthwatering. But for that to happen he first has to beat another equally determined billionaire, Ernesto Bertarelli, if indeed BMW Oracle makes it to the final of the America's Cup at all.