Tommy Kapai: Let's make plans for next Cup challenge

The Royal Pilot Bay Yacht Club has a certain taste to it when rolled off the tongue, just as The Royal Ethiopian Yacht Club did when we came up with the concept while living in Perth, WA during the 1987 Challenge for the America's Cup.

Truth be known there was no "official" Royal Ethiopian Yacht Club and the sign writing on the side of our clapped-out old Peugeot cost us more than the car itself, but we got lots of laughs driving that old putter bomb Peugeot around Fremantle while working in a cocktail bar looking after the rich and famous of the yachting fraternity.

The same could be said about The Royal Pilot Bay Yacht Club - why not? What a way to put us on the map by having a crack at the cup that looks like it has every chance of heading back home to Kiwi land.

We have the harbour and we have the beautiful Pilot Bay, sans the flash new boardwalk to promenade along while watching, just as they do in San Francisco.

So now all we need is a sponsor. Perhaps Kia Motors could come on board and we could call it the Kia Ora Cup?

Or maybe Larry might like to lick his wounds and come down for another crack and team up with Kia Motors calling it the Kia Oracle Cup?

Yeah right!

Sure it's a bit tongue-in-cheek but marketing is all about timing, and we should be ready to slingshot the Bay that has Plenty into the global spotlight when Barker's Boys in their red tractor - that some are already calling the Mighty Massey, pull the cup back home.

Let's face it, after the cheating fiasco that surely must have damaged the Oracle brand, Coutts will be cactus after this cup and Larry will be looking elsewhere for a team captain - so come on down, mate.

I have always loved the America's Cup because of the "David versus Goliath" - Massey Ferguson versus Microsoft - element.

For me it started in Newport, Rhode Island in 1983, when Bondy and his Boxing Kangaroo team, with its controversial winged keel, took it off Dirty Dennis.

What a time to be from Downunder, living and working in Rhode Island as we were.

Every night was New Year's Eve when the Aussies won and we were knighted with official Ngati Skippy status.

What made it more challenging were the early morning starts working alongside the local Antiguan Rastafarians.

You "just 'ad to 'av de positive attitude, man - you know what I mean?"

There are many layers to winning and losing the America's Cup. It is a sporting event like no other, fuelled by the bucket list of the big boys' toys that see it as a must-have.

It took 131 years for America to lose it and now they want to hold on to it at all costs. How much we are about to find out and that's why I love the whole theatre of the Auld Mug.

They can take our sailors, designers and technology and they can even throw in a few extra kilos of lead into the keel and get caught.

But they can never replicate or pinch our "Kiwis can give it a go, Bro" attitude. It's in our DNA and not for sale.

The founding fathers of Team New Zealand, such as Sir Peter Blake, must be kicking back in heaven with a smile wider than the San Francisco Bridge.

So too Sir Michael Fay, red socks on feet and a pen full of ink - ready to sign up for a shot at keeping it Downunder.

It's winner takes all in the America's Cup and right now Larry will be looking for a lawyer or a miracle to pull the red tractor, aka the Mighty Massey, back from where his boys can only see the black bum of a boat disappearing in front of them faster than the cup itself.

One thing is for certain, we are in for one hell of a September in San Francisco during this 34th America's Cup.

Even though the chances of The Royal Pilot Bay Yacht Club hosting the 35th challenge are about the same as staging a successful escape from Alcatraz Island, it does not - and should not - stop us from dreaming "what if?"

- broblack@xtra.co.nz