In the NASCAR-themed epic Talladega Nights, Will Ferrell‘s character explains that prefacing his statements with “With all due respect” allows him to subsequently say whatever he wants (in this specific case, telling his boss “With all due respect, I didn’t realize you’d gotten experimental surgery to get your balls removed.”).

ASSOCIATED PRESS

The fatal wreck.

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• NASCAR
• San Francisco 49ers
• NFC West
• Sailing
• Yachting

Today’s San Francisco version of “With all due respect” is unfurled by critics of the NASCAR-themed epic that is the America’s Cup: They issue de rigueur wishes for a successful boat race to preface a scathing evisceration of the planning and funding of the event. Sadly, in recent weeks, the definition of “success” was radically altered by the death of British Gold Medalist Andrew Simpson, after Team Artemis’ massive boat broke apart in routine conditions and trapped him beneath it.

Race organizers’ promise that they’d deliver “the crash and burn” of “NASCAR on water” has been one of the few elements of the regatta to go as envisioned — with disastrous results. Now event backers and critics alike will be on pins and needles during races, hoping no one else gets killed.

In the wake of Simpson’s death — and unnamed America’s Cup sailors venting in the New Zealand Herald that the AC72 catamarans are “Godforsaken deathtraps” that should be relegated to “museums and pictures” — race organizers last week opted to sail forward with the event with little deviation from the course at this juncture.

Let’s hope this plan works out. With all due respect, not much has.

The America’s Cup was pitched by erstwhileMayor Gavin Newsom as just the thing to compensate for the 49ers skipping town after spurning his plans for their new stadium to be built atop a radioactive Superfund site.

Rosy economic projections conjured up possibilities of 15 free-spending yachting syndicates taking up residence in San Francisco and helping to generate $1.4 billion in dinero, while providing work for 8,800 locals. These were numbers that inspired even stalwart America’s Cup supporters to tellSF Weekly at the time, “extremely optimistic is an understatement.” But they would be regurgitated, for years, even after the bloom was off the America’s Cup rose.

The promise of San Franciscans being able to remove their socks and shoes and wade through the money was used to justify forking over vast swaths of the city’s central waterfront to yachting billionaire Larry Ellison. This mayorally backed move would have cost the city and port hundreds of millions of dollars — and, SF Weekly reported in 2011, resulted in port staff clandestinely bending the ears of city politicos to halt a plan that would have eviscerated port finances.

Halted it was, leading to a tidier giveaway of less-vast swaths of the northern waterfront. This would have cost the city mere scores of millions of dollars and could have left the port reimbursing Ellison’s heirs into the 22nd century. This plan, too, was abandoned last year on the cusp of an all-but-certain Board of Supervisors’ vote of approval when, per inside sources, Ellison abruptly backed away.

That led to the current, pared-back Cup iteration (like Dr. Who, the regatta manages to regenerate into something new and peculiar every time it dies). In the current plan, the city isn’t reimbursing anyone into the 22nd century. But it’s highly unclear if the city will be reimbursed.

Despite years of unambiguous warnings from budget-minded officials that private America’s Cup fundraisers’ loose obligation to “endeavor” to reach their goal could leave the city holding the bag, just such a scenario manifested itself this year. This was the inspiration for Supervisor John Avalos‘ primal lament that “All the members of the Board of Supervisors were fucking played.”

Along the way, a welder inadvertently incinerated Pier 29, America’s Cup organizers tossed half their staff overboard in a cost-cutting move, preliminary races were nixed, projections confirmed port officials’ fears the Cruise Ship Terminal could be a money pit, teams publicly considered dropping out, and city residents are now menaced by pending appearances of 311 and Train during the America’s Cup Concert Series.

It started with a vision of 15 sailing teams out on the water. Now there are four — and the Jonas Brothers.

Simpson’s death exposes the macabre paradox undermining the sole element America’s Cup cheerleaders and haters could agree on — that the spectacle of massive boats hitting damn near a mile a minute within a few yards of shore would be exhilarating.

In order to maximize the new experience of near-shore yacht racing and create a television audience for an event normally as engaging as chess, organizers pushed the AC72s. There have never been ships like these hulking, cutting-edge marvels – and, now, there may never be again. Their vast power and speed — and the ever-lurking possibility of a fantastic smackup — were selling points; your humble narrator witnessed an America’s Cup official showing a gathering of marine professionals a five-minute “highlight reel” of oversize catamarans colliding, flipping, and sending Lilliputian crew members hurtling into the sea.

This is the essence of “NASCAR on water.”

Perhaps in the future, TV networks might pay to put America’s Cup races on the air – instead of the opposite, which is now the case. The marine professionals, however, didn’t seem overly enthused by the notion of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Yachting, and it remains to be seen how the nautically challenged take to the event. The great risk is that the America’s Cup is now too NASCAR for the yachting crowd and too yachting for the NASCAR crowd.

Of course, sailing these amazing but dangerous ships carries risks of a far graver nature. Let’s hope for no more unsuccessful boat races.

Anyone curious about the French take on the America’s Cup fiasco is in for a lesson on the difficulties of translating colloquialisms, bureaucratic frustration, and swears.

Le Monde recently covered the fiscal tussle surrounding the incredible shrinking regatta: Organizers claim sales and hotel tax revenues from the race will suffice to offset anemic private fund-raising.

This was not part of the original arrangement; the city was supposed to be made whole beforehand – with tax revenue serving as a cherry on top. Per the contract, however, the America’s Cup Organizing Committee must merely “endeavor” to meet its fund-raising goal.

“I’ve shouted publicly to the rooftops how ashamed I am that I see that language” – the vagueness about “endeavor” — “and not reading into what it said. I was fucking played. All the members of the Board of Supervisors were fucking played,” Supervisor John Avalos told SF Weekly on Feb. 20.

Here’s how Le Monde translated that:

“J’avais publiquement crié au scandale pour dire mon opposition à l’emploi du terme bancal ‘s’efforceront,’ et je peux aujourd’hui dire que tous les membres de l’assemblée se sont fait foutrement avoir,” a-t-il déclaré le 20 février dans l’hebdomadaire SF Weekly.

This is a solid — but not exact – reconstruction of Avalos’ lament (“I shouted publicly to the rooftops” wouldn’t mean the same thing to a French speaker). Here’s a translation of their translation:

“I publicly cried scandal to express my opposition to the use of the wobbly term ‘endeavor,’ and I can today say that the members of the assembly were fucking played.”

Incidentally, running the business end of Avalos’ quote through a Google translator results in an incorrect — but vastly entertaining — result: “I can say all members of the assembly are done fucking you.”

© Gilles Martin-Raget/ACEA

While he has his critics—and they are loud at times—Russell Coutts remains confident the sun will shine on the 34th America’s Cup.

These days, Russell Coutts spends a lot more time in his office than out on the water. But for the America’s Cup’s most successful skipper, it’s all part of the challenge of the game. In fact, he appears to be thriving amidst the barrage of criticism from fans, other teams, and San Francisco politicians. Though, to be fair, many people have been much more positive about the new look of the America’s Cup. He remains confident that once the event starts, the negativity will die down considerably and the racing will command everyone’s attention, just as he hoped it would.

Oracle Team USA is on Day 20 on Boat 1 with Wing 2. Boat 2 won’t launch until the end of April; what’s the plan to ensure the Defender is ready for the main event in September?
RC: We have our two foiling AC45s, which we’re training on, and once we get our two 72s on the water—the boat should launch at the end of April—we plan on sailing and racing those two boats against each other up until the end.

So, you’re feeling confident that things are looking good for the team?
RC: Yes, I think so far, so good for Oracle Team USA. We recovered well from the capsize, and that seems like a distant memory now. As long as we don’t get a repeat of that, we’ll be in pretty good shape. Rod Davis recently made a comment about the deception that goes on in the AC, but in my experience, that doesn’t really matter a damn. It doesn’t win or lose you the Cup. I just don’t think it’s been a big factor in any America’s Cup I’ve been involved with, it’s the media that make more of it. Whether we did or not [spy] in my opinion wouldn’t affect the outcome one little bit. When I assess our program, not only do we have a very good design team, we also have a very good sailing team, so I think we’re looking good.

Oracle and Artemis have not had the opportunity to train together for a variety of reasons.  Explain why this is a good or a bad situation for Oracle.
RC: Probably bad because it’s always good to work out with another team; the more we can sail with a team like Artemis on a regular basis, it enhances the competitive juices and shows you a different perspective about things. You can learn a lot.

After Artemis had a brief chance to sail alongside Oracle’s second AC72, they then decided to add foils to their boat. Can you comment on that chain of events?
RC: Things are changing so fast with the technology, and I don’t think any of it is particularly earth shattering in that foils have been around a long time. I think there’s design talent in that team that could analyze the situation pretty quickly. Probably they’ve also got an AC45 that they’re practicing foiling in. They could probably learn a lot just from looking at what some of the other teams have done and factor that into where the future is going, and they may end up just as well off, or even better. The playing field is changing so fast I don’t think it’s necessarily all about sailing time on the water and time with the equipment. It may be more about the choice of the equipment you choose to build and how you apply that to the boat at the end of the day that matters. In 1995 AC Team NZ launched our boats literally just months before the Cup—I think two months before racing began. Some other teams sailed much longer that that; developed boats full size etc. But we chose a better design path, got a better design product, and that was the winning factor. There are plenty of other examples over the years. It’s easy to fall into the trap of saying, “We’re doing more, and therefore it’s going to be better.” I don’t necessarily think that’s the case. I only think you need to have to have the best equipment on race day, nothing else matters.

How will the course on San Francisco Bay be adapted to manage AC72 racing?
RC: I don’t think there’s going to be much difference, and the sailors will adapt to the shorter confines of the course. Just like any of the boats over any of the AC generations, people start off by saying that they’ll never be able to sail about, that they’ll be so difficult, and so on. After the crews become pretty good at it, they say, “Well, actually we can.” Even the Version 5 boats, racing them inside Auckland Harbor, if you had gone back to the very origins of that class, people thought we couldn’t possibly do that. It may start off being a really tight racetrack for the teams, but after a while they’ll get used to it.

What was your favorite World Series venue, and what’s the plan for continuing it beyond this spring?
RC: There is a plan to continue and expand the concept, there’s no doubt about it. If Oracle Team USA were fortunate enough to win, there’d be a break while things got reorganized, but the plan would be to continue it for sure. San Francisco was probably the best just because of the wind conditions, etc., but I also thought Newport was good. Frankly, they’re all good—Plymouth was a good venue when you look back. It has been a great series. You have to remember that two years ago—August 2011—this thing started. Before that we had nothing. There have been a lot of situations where you could have done a lot of things better, but that’s good news for the future. We now have a concept that did work, that did create excitement, and that did turn out to be a good television product. I think it’s nicely in a position of refinement now, making sure that costs are well managed, making sure that the television production follows the right process, making sure that the competition itself develops into a meaningful format in that there’s more teams in the game. These things will make the product better in the future.

You’ve won the Cup for other countries and seen the national response to sailing in other countries. What do you think are the key differences about the perception and response to sailing in the United States?
RC: I don’t think there is that much difference actually in the U.S. Let’s wait and see after this America’s Cup and after the national broadcasting. If you’re comparing the America’s Cup in San Diego to some of the other America’s Cups, it was hard to get interested in San Diego when there was no real event village and the racing was miles out to sea, where no one could see it. You’d have to be an extreme optimist to think that was going to be a great series. Now we have a proper event village, a festival of activities, and racing will be right on shore for people to see it. Just as they started to at the World Series events, Americans are going to think this will be a fun thing to come along and be part of. In Newport, R.I., the town itself almost because an America’s Cup village. Imagine if they had opened up racing inside Newport Harbor what it would have been like. As it was, it was pretty good. Moving it into a major city is another jump again. I say let’s wait and see how Americans respond this time.

If you win the Cup, what changes would you foresee?
RC: I think the idea of ACRM has been a good one, where you have an entity that manages the competition on behalf of all the competitors. That concept could be expanded more widely to the America’s Cup, where you do things more collectively rather than as one entity. I think you also could, with cooperation from all the teams, do things for a longer term to allow the media and sponsorship partners, etc., to participate for a longer term. For example, all of the competitors who enter next time would agree to keep to a certain format and certain type of boat, certain venues in the World Series, etc., even if they won the next America’s Cup. And instead of extending [a format] to only every four years, you’re up to eight straight away which gives you more scope to develop the product and create more value for the commercial partners and media. A simple example is media rights. A lot of the big media players would probably find this much more valuable if they could sign up for longer term rights. If you know your entries and you know one of them is going to win the next America’s Cup and they agree to take over those rights should they win, then all of a sudden you can give those media companies what they want. It would make a big difference, for example, if we knew that after this event, NBC would be carrying on for the next one as well. These are the sort of things that could be expanded in the future.

Do you miss being on the boat?
Some days, but other days not. The America’s Cup is an incredibly challenging world. There are lots of things going on, and that’s the great thing about it. I certainly love my time sailing, but I also like the complexities and challenges involved elsewhere as well. It’s fun at all levels.