The Billionaire and the Mechanic: How Larry Ellison and a Car Mechanic Teamed Up to Win Sailing’s Greatest Race, the America’s Cup, by Julian Guthrie: A Book Review

The America’s Cup, first awarded in 1851, is the oldest trophy in modern international sports, and one of the most hotly contested and elite competitions, with teams paying upwards of $100 million to have a chance at success. Last month, for the first time since 1985, the America’s Cup was held in American waters, and it was successfully defended by the BMW Oracle Racing team that brought it home to the U.S. in 2010, the last time the race was held. Julian Guthrie’s The Billionaire and the Mechanic chronicles the unlikely partnership of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and car mechanic Norbert Bajurin, the Commodore of the blue-collar Golden Gate Yacht Club, and their unsuccessful runs for the Cup in 2003 and 2007 before their final victory in 2010. Guthrie’s book is a tale of intrigue, frenetic white-knuckle races, demoralizing defeats, and hard-won success. With the America’s Cup receiving widespread television coverage in 2013, Guthrie’s book sheds light on the rising tide of competitive sailing, and the epic partnership that helped make such popularity possible worldwide.

Larry Ellison, the hard-driving, self-made billionaire, and a championship sailor with a team of the best sailors in the world, was never one to play by the rules. When he set his sights on the America’s Cup, the most prestigious award in professional sailing, he found the traditions and protocols of elite, long-standing yacht clubs to be constricting and onerous. Ellison therefore jumped at the chance offered by Norbert Bajurin, the newly-elected commodore of the struggling blue-collar Golden Gate Yacht Club in San Francisco to participate in the America’s Cup without the suffocating rules of more prestigious clubs. In exchange for immense prestige, international attention, and fiscal solvency, Bajurin in turn ceded all practical control of the race to Ellison and the Oracle racing team. The partnership electrified the elitist, tradition-bound world of competitive sailing. The common charm of Bajurin and the go-get-‘em determination of Ellison attracted millions of new fans and viewers to the sport. Despite a promising beginning, the Golden Gate-Oracle team foundered in 2003-2004 during the Louis Vuitton Cup Qualifier in New Zealand against Team Alinghi, manned primarily by Kiwi and Aussie sailors sponsored by European pharmaceutical billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli. The Oracle team, despite new leadership and innovative tactics, just barely lost the 2007 America’s cup to Alinghi again, but successfully lobbied for the Golden Gate Yacht Club to be the ‘Challenger on Record’ for the 2010 America’s Cup. In an unexpected turn of events in 2010, Team Oracle battled Team Alinghi in Valencia harbor using fast and maneuverable trimarans, ultimately defeating their opponents in a close race recounted by Guthrie in white-knuckled detail. Having won the America’s Cup for Americans for the first time in over 30 years, the Oracle-Golden Gate team planed new strategies and ship designs to successfully defend the cup in 2013 in San Francisco, a race they won last month after an amazing comeback from an 8-1 loss against team Alinghi, allowing America to retain its eponymous cup for another three years.

As a recreational sailor, I was happy to see the oft-underreported sport receive such an exciting and pulse-pounding treatment. Julian Guthrie is a talented sports writer bringing her readers aboard the magnificent racing craft along with her protagonists, and behind-the-scenes in board rooms, ship workshops, and yacht clubs around the world. Her engaging and accessible writing, also informs the sailing layperson by frequent and excellently explained reference to sailing history and terminology.

Rating: *****