AnarkyChallenge: Bertarelli Disappears

Ernesto Bertarelli Sends Self Back In Time To Try Prevent Protocol's Publication

Ernesto Bertarelli, announcing his departure on Alinghi TV.

LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND—According to a videotaped message airing exclusively on Alinghi TV, America's Cup champion Ernesto Bertarelli has sent himself back in time to July 5th 2007 to avert the catastrophic signing of the Protocol for the America's Cup XXXIII.

"By the time you see this, I will have returned to Moment Zero of AC 33, in a time machine of my own design," said Bertarelli in the three-minute message, which first aired Sunday on his own online video channel. "I will doggedly pursue Lucien Masmejan, Fred Meyer and Augustin Zulueta to stop this horribly misguided Protocol. And I will not return to my own time until the Protocol has been prevented!"

The moment Bertarelli is so desperate to prevent.

The Protocol was signed aboard Bertarelli's private yacht Vava at a time when Alinghi felt flush with success, having crossed the line one second ahead of Team New Zealand in a gut wrenching AC Final. But the Protocol quickly proved ill-fated, as few of the benefits it promised proved feasible or profitable enough, and as the world declared that "it stinks." Within a week, lawsuits were filed in New York charging that the new arrangement had been signed to by a fake adversary. Bertarelli's life has been a desperate struggle ever since but it could take a turn for the worse if his dangerous attempt fails.

Alinghi spokespersons say the mysterious, unseen time-travel device was developed under a veil of extreme secrecy at a new facility somewhere in Villeneuve, Switzerland. Little else about the machine or Bertarelli's mission is yet known.

"From what we now understand, but Ernesto probably did not, the machine acts only on living human flesh," a worried Alinghi spokesman Grant Simmer said. "And so if Ernesto has been successful, he has materialized in July 2007 completely nude, with no ID or money. To survive, he'll need to steal clothing and rely on whatever crude weapons he can fashion with his bare hands."

America's Cup watchers have expressed skepticism about Ernesto's chances.

"The Protocol was signed at the height of the celebration in Valencia, when conventional wisdom was that ErnieVision would be the wave of the future," said Brad Butterworth, his erstwhile Alinghi skipper. "In such a heady, bullish climate, Ernie's warnings of impending doom in a frightening future of multihull giants will likely be dismissed by Lucien and Fred as just the ravings of a naked lunatic."

Hubris, physicists say, is not the only obstacle facing Bertarelli on his dramatic mission.

"Altering the flow of time is a dangerous and complex proposition," said Dr. Arthur Wistrom, a professor at EPFL, the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. "If Mr Bertarelli is not careful, he may unintentionally change the course of his own history, causing, for example, something to go awry with his loving, happy marriage to the very beautiful Kirsty."

Suddenly available

Compounding Bertarelli's troubles is an unconfirmed report that enemy forces within the Club Nautico Espanol de Vela have responded with their own time-travel initiative, dispatching back in time 17 cyborg drones disguised as Emirates Team New Zealand sailors to deliver victory to ETNZ instead, thus averting the Spanish Club's own disastrous future of failure and embarrassment.

"Why anyone at CNEV would want to do such a thing remains a mystery, as we lost more in the Protocol than anyone," Butterworth said. "Perhaps somewhere within the vast Internet network of Sailing Anarchy subscribers, some malevolent cybernetic force has achieved sentience and is bent on the destruction of its human Alinghi masters."

Bertarelli's time-jump represents the latest in a series of high-stakes gambits for the playboy sailor and multi-billionaire.

"From his planned conversion of an independent Challenger Selection Series into an 'Alinghi Uber Alles' event, to his crushing loss in court last May, to his narrow surprise victory on appeal, one that appears to be on such thin ice, Bertarelli has built a career lately on taking big risks," America's Cup reporter Bob Fisher said. "But traveling back in time all by himself, a lone sailor soldier from the future facing nigh-impossible odds—that is arguably the most daring move he has made yet."

Though the odds are stacked against Bertarelli, many are betting on him to prevail.

"The court case reduced Ernesto to a mere figurehead and could ultimately cost him hundreds of millions of his personal and potential fortune," America's Cup guru Tom Ehman said. "A lesser man would have crumbled in the face of such adversity. Yet we are talking about the man who just this year piloted his yacht to second place in the Bol d'Or. According to messages we have received from the future at Oracle headquarters near San Francisco, he will in 2013 single-handedly defeat the alien warrior-sailor Zyfax in hand-to-hand combat at the SNG before succumbing to mortal wounds. He is not just a brave America's Cup warrior. He is Alinghi's last, best hope and we wish him full success in his disappearance."