Larry Ellison buys his way into Americas Cup team

Permission granted to pipe him aboard

By Lucy Sherriff • Get more from this author

Posted in Business, 24th July 2000 13:29 GMT

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Larry Ellison's belief that he is best at everything has led him to buy AmericaOne, the yacht that lost the Americas Cup last year, so he can captain the team on its next challenge for the title.

That will be the first time Ellison will have participated in the race, and while he is an experience yachtsman, there are those in the sailing community who have the nerve to doubt his ability to lead a successful Americas Cup challenge. But he does have a nautical beard. He will replace current skipper Paul Cayard who's been sailing since the 1960s.

And if that is not enough boat-related controversy for one billionaire, a Yachting broker is suing the Oracle boss for non-payment of commission on Ellison's purchase of a $10 million floating gin palace. The trial is taking place in California and is expected to last about a week.

The yacht in question is a monster 192 footer with five floors and an air-conditioned gymnasium. Broker Michael Rafferty claims that Ellison he is owed commission to the tune of $700,000 after bartered with the seller to reduce the price from $13.5 million to $10 million.

Ellison's lawyers claim that he was an innocent bystander.

And while we're talking about egocentric IT billionaires and yachting, we would have linked to our story from May about Bill Gates reportedly being the money man behind the attempt to pillage Team New Zealand of its crew, but our archiving is still all to cock. So we'll just mention instead. ®