The America's Cup - There's Everything to Pay For

ACM provides details of an Auction of items from the 32nd America's Cup.

You can imagine the scene, you've just come to the end of a four year struggle to successfully organise a major global sporting event, no doubt with weeks of tying loose ends up still ahead; no sooner is the cup held aloft do you learn that you've got to do it all over again, only this time in a 2 year time frame... then news reaches you that there's a court action challenging your every decision, so things are going to be even more complicated. The good news is you've pretty much spent the past 4 years accumulating all that you need for the next campaign, so you don't have to worry about that. At the very least, you'd think your boss would let you hang on to your desk and chair to work from.

But this is the America's Cup, and there's sponsorship money to squander. So you decide to arrange an auction of everything that's beginning to look a bit tatty - perhaps you have a new colour scheme in mind for the office, or you simply see an opportunity to rid the organisation of that golf buggy you might have accidentally 'pranged' on one of those cerveza-fuelled late night races around the car park.

All that is conjecture, what is fact is that ACM now have a live website with details of their forthcoming auction, which you can visit here.

A recent press release detailed the lovelies on offer:

Valencia, 30 July 2007

Following the end of the competition on the water and the dismantling and packing of what was a successful event, some of the physical assets of the 32nd America's Cup will be put up for sale through a capital asset auction company.

The organisers of the 32nd America's Cup acquired numerous capital assets and despite last week's announcement that Valencia will be the Host City to the 33rd America's Cup, some of these assets will now be sold, and the revenue generated distributed in accordance with the Protocol for the 32nd America's Cup.

Among the items for sale are some of the boats used by the Regatta Operations department to organise the races, but also varied electronic items (plasma screens, computers, servers, televisions, etc), office furniture, vehicles (trucks, golf carts, scooters), catering equipment, etc. A few memorabilia items will also be part of the online auction.

The auction, exclusively online, will take place during three days in September.

So there we have it, irrefutable proof that the ACM's dieticians and nutritionists have ordered the management to go on a strict diet for the duration of the 33rd cup campaign, as evidenced by the auctioning of their catering equipment; it must be that, because we know the catering equipment manufacturing industry well, and we know their goods are designed to last a lot longer than 4 years!

And look see, there's more. The organisers of the America's Cup don't see the need to hang on to boats next time around. Does anyone know if the FIA and Bernie Ecclestone plan a format change to F1 at all? Perhaps spinnakers might make an appearance?

We also noted that there will be a few memorabilia items on offer, so we've raided the Afterguard's piggy bank in preparation; we suspect, however, that we're going to be disappointed to learn that the alleged availability of 'a pair of slacks belonging to Ernesto Bertarelli with Larry Ellison's teeth imprints on the backside' will turn out simply to be malicious rumour.