On board S/Y Bushido, off Ibiza
As everyone who has followed the America’s Cup fiasco knows, it is now up to international courts to decide who shall defend what and where. The egregious Swiss billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli is the holder, and has been sued by Larry Ellison, an American sick-making, money-grubbing billionaire, whose stink pot, Rising Sun, has to be among the world’s ugliest gin palaces.
Hence when word got out that the Pug’s Club regatta was to take place off the island of Ibiza last weekend, thousands of Spaniards swelled the beaches in the hope of seeing real sailing boats fight it out at sea, rather than in some dreary courtroom in San Francisco or Geneva. An added attraction was the presence of Count Leopold Bismarck, on board Bushido, who reputedly had announced his intentions to avenge the cowardly sinking of the great battleship and namesake by helping me defeat Tim Hoare’s magnificent gaff-rigged Alexa (a boat Adolf Hitler admired but was unable to purchase) and Roger Taylor’s Tiger Lily, reputed to be the only schooner in the world whose owner (drummer of Queen) managed to water-ski behind.
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