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Searching... McMinnville Public Library | 797.14 Guthrie | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
A Forbes Best Book of the Year
The America's Cup, first awarded in 1851, is the oldest trophy in international sports, and one of the most hotly contested. In 2000, Larry Ellison, co-founder and billionaire CEO of Oracle Corporation, decided to run for the coveted prize and found an unlikely partner in Norbert Bajurin, a car radiator mechanic who had recently been named Commodore of the blue collar Golden Gate Yacht Club.
Julian Guthrie's The Billionaire and the Mechanic tells the incredible story of the partnership between Larry and Norbert, their unsuccessful runs for the Cup in 2003 and 2007, and their victory in 2010. With unparalleled access to Ellison and his team, Guthrie takes readers inside the design and building process of these astonishing boats, and the management of the passionate athletes who race them. She traces the bitter rivalries between Oracle and their competitors, including Swiss billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli's Team Alinghi, and throws readers into exhilarating races from Australia and New Zealand to Valencia, Spain.
The Billionaire and the Mechanic is a must-read for anyone interested in the race or this remarkable story.
Author Notes
Julian Guthrie is an award-winning journalist and staff writer at the San Francisco Chronicle . She is the author of The Grace of Everyday Saints: How a Band of Believers Lost Their Church and Found Their Faith. She lives in San Francisco.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
A rich man's vanity is lionized in this hagiographic yacht-racing saga. Journalist Guthrie (The Grace of Everyday Saints) recounts Oracle founder Larry Ellison's quest to win the America's cup, an effort that climaxed in a 2010 victory with a high-tech, $40 million, rigid-sailed trimaran so fast that it left the competition in the spray. When the author sticks to boats and races her account is absorbing-there's drama in these powerful, fragile vessels and among the even more highly-strung New Zealanders who crew them for other nations' teams. Unfortunately, Guthrie's focus is too often on Ellison and his swanky digs, Zen posturings-"He listened to the wind rustling the bamboo... for a welcome moment, he felt safe"-and vacuous drive to win, which egotistical navel-gazing she mistakes for philosophy. The eponymous "mechanic" is Norbert Bajurin, an auto-repair-shop owner who helmed San Francisco's downscale Golden Gate Yacht Club, which Ellison essentially hired to front his Cup bids; absurdly, Guthrie styles Bajurin, whose only role is to applaud from the sidelines, as the billionaire's working-class soul mate. Guthrie's incessant fawning over a plutocrat's pretensions steal the wind from the narrative's sails. Agent: Joe Veltre, Gersh Agency. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
How billionaire Larry Ellison and his Oracle team succeeded in returning the America's Cup, the premier prize in global yachting, to the United States. Victory came in 2010 when USA-17, Ellison's state-of-the-art, carbon-fiber composite boat regained the cup after failures in 2003 and 2007. San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Guthrie's (The Grace of Everyday Saints: How a Band of Believers Lost Their Church and Found Their Faith, 2011) splendid elaboration of the victory also encompasses the history of the race and the competitors and their boats from its beginnings in the mid-19th century. She marks off clearly which parts of the team's success were due to luck, which to money, and which to skill and superior technology, and she ably captures the parallel competition between men and their boats and the power of nature working through ocean and weather. Guthrie presents the successive challenges Ellison had to overcome as he developed the skills, the team and the technology that could tame the waves and human competition. Part of her story involves the organization of a kind of insurrection in the elite world of yacht clubs. Working with radiator mechanic Norbert Bajurin, commodore of San Francisco's Golden Gate Yacht Club, Ellison took on both privilege and inherited wealth, as represented by Ernesto Bertarelli and his Swiss Team Alinghi, which had won in 2007. Their 2010 rematch brought together some of the same leading competitors from Ellison's first attempt in New Zealand in 2003. Guthrie crisply sketches the complex process that was required for Ellison to establish his own position in the top ranks of yachting and organize the winning team in 2010. A thriller of a tale and a worthy scene-setter for this summer's trophy defense in San Francisco Bay.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Larry Ellison, billionaire founder of Oracle Corporation, the worldwide computer technology company, was looking for a challenge. He decided, in early 2000, to race for the America's Cup. Of course, the America's Cup race isn't between individuals but between sailing clubs; Ellison figured that shouldn't be a problem. He'd have no trouble finding a club to sponsor him. Turns out that wasn't as simple as he thought, until Norbert Bajurin, the mechanic of the title and the newly appointed commodore of San Francisco's Golden Gate Yacht Club, faced with a shrinking membership and the very real possibility that the club might have to shut down, came up with the brilliant idea of sponsoring Ellison. This energetically written book recounts the partnership that grew into a friendship, as Ellison and Bajurin mounted multiple runs for the Cup (they won it in 2010, and that story alone, with its pitched legal battles and their attendant publicity, could fill a book). Published only months before the 2013 America's Cup, with Ellison's team defending, the book is sure to spark interest among racing fans.--Pitt, David Copyright 2010 Booklist
Table of Contents
| Part I | |
| 1 The Southern Ocean | p. 3 |
| 2 Radiator Repair Shop in San Francisco | p. 14 |
| 3 The Island of Antigua | p. 19 |
| 4 San Francisco Marina | p. 31 |
| 5 Woodside, California | p. 39 |
| 6 St. Francis Yacht Club | p. 47 |
| 7 The Golden Gate Yacht Club | p. 55 |
| 8 The Golden Gate Yacht Club | p. 64 |
| Part II | |
| 9 The Hills of Santa Barbara | p. 77 |
| 10 Atherton, California | p. 85 |
| 11 San Francisco to New Zealand | p. 94 |
| 12 Oracle Base Camp | p. 107 |
| 13 Redwood Shores, California | p. 110 |
| 14 San Francisco Bay | p. 138 |
| 15 Newport, Rhode Island | p. 148 |
| 16 Valencia, Spain | p. 154 |
| 17 South of Market, San Francisco | p. 160 |
| 18 Valencia, Spain | p. 166 |
| Part III | |
| 19 Woodside, California | p. 183 |
| 20 Woodside, California | p. 195 |
| 21 Bangkok, Thailand, to Cagliari, Italy | p. 212 |
| 22 Anacortes, Washington | p. 232 |
| 23 San Diego, California | p. 239 |
| 24 Valencia, Spain | p. 245 |
| 25 Valencia to San Francisco | p. 266 |
| 26 Rancho Mirage, California | p. 271 |
| 27 Moscone Center, San Francisco | p. 286 |
| 28 Alouis Radiators, San Francisco | p. 290 |
| 29 Stanford University, California | p. 294 |
| Epilogue: The 34th America's Cup San Francisco, California | p. 301 |
| Appendix: The America's Cup Races | p. 313 |
| Author's Note | p. 317 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 321 |