The Inside Poop from an Un-named Source

I can't help wondering if OneWorld Challenge's recent decision to fold (don't let the claimed search for sponsors fool you), might have been Craig McCaw's plan all along. Consider how close it occurred to the critical March 1, 2001 date for mercenary crew and designers to elect and establish residency. What new events have occurred compelling closure that were not apparent prior to March 1st?

One hears that OWC's crew contracts were guaranteed through May 2001, just long enough beyond the residency deadline to disqualify a crewman from sailing for another syndicate of the same nation (i.e. Team DC, Oracle). One also hears that McCaw serreptitiously included language in those agreeements requiring those in crew positions also to participate in the design of the syndicate's sails and yacht, language that brands those individuals as "design personnel" and effectively bans them from working in ANY capacity for another team during AC-31. Is it a mere coincidence that Gary Wright, McCaw's bagman, suddenly appeared in Auckland in the waning days of the last Cup to deliver a bundle of money to Team New Zealand and following which the previously finalized AC-31 Protocol was further revised to prohibit designers and crew from jumping ship except in the most narrow of circumstances?

If anyone wanted to effectively sabotage the New Zealand effort at a successful defense, it could not have been better orchestrated. The Kiwis who opted to sign with OWC are now persona non grata at home and because of the Protocol's constraints on designers, Laurie Davidson, Richard Whitaker and the other former Team New Zealand design team defectors, are now ineligible to work for any other syndicate including TNZ.

I don't know what McCaw's actual motiviation might have been if the syndicate's collapse was pre-planned as appears to have been the case; perhaps he was just pissed-off that the Cup did not return to the US after AC-30. Who knows - he might be a big flag-waver to have orchestrated this out of patriotism, or to just show off POWER among his fellow Bs.

A last possibility exists: maybe McCaw has just run out of money. One hears that his new 300' megayacht Tatoosh was over-budget an amazing $30M, and the way he spent money buying up assets and personnel for his AC campaign conjured up visions of a drunken sailor on payday. If finances are the bugaboo behind the impending implosion, perhaps OneWorld should change its name to the ThirdWorld Challenge and apply for World Bank Funding. It worked in Russia so why not here?!