There has been a lot of buzz in the last few days that Larry Ellison plans to hold the next America's Cup in Hawaii. See, for example, Larry Ellison eyeing Honolulu for '17 America's Cup.
And it's true. I have it straight from the mouth of a usually reliable source, who cannot be named at this time, that Larry has made the decision and that these are the seven main reasons why he has made this choice...
1. Hawaii is the only American state not in the Americas. Larry feels that the America's Cup has been held in the Americas way too much. It's time for a change.
2. There some disagreement on how to spell the name of the place. Is it Hawaii or Hawaiʻi? If the America's Cup itself doesn't generate enough controversy we can always have a good argument about diacritics and glottal stops. And Larry loves a good argument.
3. The state motto is "Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono." Need I say more?
4. Hawaiian music. The Hawaiian language has no word that translates precisely as "music", but don't let that fool you. There's a wide variety of traditional and popular styles of music unique to Hawaii. Take slack key guitar for example. Larry loves slack key guitar.
5. Volcanoes! What a brilliant idea to hold the America's Cup near volcanoes. A spectacular volcanic eruption could liven things up if the racing gets too boring. Larry is a genius.
6. Spam! Spam is very popular in Hawaii. Fried spam with rice, fried eggs and spam, spam stir-fried with cabbage, spam mashed with tofu, spam and cold sōmen, spam and baked macaroni and cheese, spam sandwiches and spam musubi, to name just a few delicious spam dishes you can enjoy in Hawaii. Spam - the official mystery meat of the 35th America's Cup!!! Larry loves spam. And sponsors.
7. Okolehao. Need I say more?
16 comments:
And he has a pad nearby. Ok, he owns a whole island, but for quadzillionaires that's just a detail.
Plus the state flag would make Ben Ainslie feel at home.
Larry has a pad everywhere. But I like your point about the flag.
Reason #1....Because he can.
Reason #2....Because he has the Cup.
Reason #3....See Rules 1 & 2.
The Golden Rule. He with the Gold, makes the rules
It's to let the "American" team of Aussies and Kiwis feel closer to home.
Another very good reason Luke.
Reason 6 is the only one necessary
Yes, Baydog, food is a very important issue in selecting a site for the America's Cup. What does San Francisco have that can compete with spam?
Yikes. There is a link from Sailing Anarchy to this post with the comment "Cute enough."
Cute?
Enough?
The America's Cup isn't about Spam, it's about real estate.
Larry got all the available waterfront SF property in the last AC, so there's no reason to dawdle there any more.
I think he's making all this noise about Hawaii just to draw out the Newport folks again to see how much acreage they're willing to pony up.
It ain't over until the fat cats sing.
The waterfront in Newport will all be underwaterfront in 20 or 30 years anyway on account of climate change, so if Larry wants to buy it all I think he will find plenty of willing sellers.
But spam and okolehao… that's another story.
Don't let the hard-asses from SA intimidate you. Oops. Guess they won't let me pledge their fraternity now
Baydog: I gave up on SA many years ago.
I don't read SA regularly but I did see yesterday that readers were arriving at my blog from there so I wanted to check what the context of the link was. I also sometimes check out SA when I'm writing something about sailing news (as opposed to my own personal sailing) in order to check out whether I'm writing something from an original perspective and not just repeating stuff that's already on SA. For instance, It did strike me that this quote from Larry might actually be quite old as it's from a new paperback version of a book that's been out in hardback form for almost a year, but that same comment thread on SA had already covered that question. However, I don't think SA had got my scoop on spam and slack key guitar being the real reasons that AC35 will be in Hawaii.
How about adding Reason No. 8 - It'll be handy for Okole from Tacticat (SailX) to head the Protest Committee and God knows the America's Cup needs a 'strong and confident' protest committee.
Great point Brian. In spite of what they say, Larry must know his 'okole from his ku'eku'e.
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