Billionaires Ernesto Bertarelli and Larry Ellison are so massively rich that they can afford to build two of the most awe-inspiring yachts that ocean racing has ever seen. Yet both are being outshone, even shamed, by 16-year-old sailors with a fraction of their means.

Such as Jessica Watson. The Australian and her bubble-gum pink 34-foot single-master are somewhere in the Pacific now, a couple of weeks into her quest to sail alone and unassisted around the world. Another 16-year-old, Abigail Sunderland, hopes to set sail from California on her solo circumnavigation in December.

No fuss, no theatrics, just two kids realizing their dreams, with the same sailing spirit of adventure that over the centuries pushed back the frontiers of mankind's world.

In sum, the very same ingredients that Bertarelli and Ellison, the bickering billionaires, are sucking from sailing's most prestigious showpiece, the America's Cup.

Having more money than sense and egos to dwarf an unfurled mainsail have often been traits of those who pursue the cup, the oldest trophy in international sports. Almost from its very beginnings in 1851, this contest between nations has been a rich gentleman's equivalent of bare-knuckle boxing. Low blows, accusations of poor sportsmanship and other assorted skullduggery are as much parts of cup lore as feats of nautical mastery.

It is, in the words of cup historian Jacques Taglang, "a soap opera."

Only this time, we're about ready to switch off.

What should be one of sport's most exhilarating spectacles, a conspicuous consumption poke in the eye to economic recession, has become as tedious as being becalmed on a yacht with no wind. The only real action, if it can be called that, has been in New York courts of law.

The billionaires, who used to be friends, have fallen out completely. Back, forth and back again, for two mind-numbing years and counting, battalions of lawyers for their competing camps have fought. About the rules. About the venue for the race. About the boat designs. About pretty much any argument canny lawyers can think of.

There may have been genuine justifications for all this, some sacred legal principle so vital to the future of life, the universe and everything that it is worth holding the cup hostage for. But if there was, then it has long since been drowned under tidal waves of writs, submissions, suits and affidavits.

The publication Litigation Daily perhaps best summed up this sorry saga, acidly noting that "very few cases in recent legal history have featured the exquisite litigation skills of such a high-priced, high-caliber cadre of lawyers as those who have toiled, at little or no benefit to society, on the America's Cup dispute."

Adds Taglang, the historian: "Somewhere, a little of the real sense of adventure has disappeared ... It can tire even the aficionados of the America's Cup like me."

The ultimate upshot of this will be a sailing grudge-match, a pistols at dawn scenario where both sides will face off with their sailing weapon of choice. Continued...