At the helm of the Aussie effort was an English immigrant sign painter turned zillionaire named Allen Bond. Having seen Aussies celebrate and especially sporting events I can only imagine the revelry that swept the land. Allan Bond was named “Australian of the Year” and made a national hero, ahh but the hero takes a fall.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Bond_%28businessman%29 The defense of the Cup brought out a plethora of boats competing for the right to defend the Aussie held cup. Bond built two more winged keel boats, the Australia III and IV. After a round robbin series of races he lost the bid to defend the cup to another Australian boat, Kookara II.
In years to follow Bond would go from national hero to convicted felon and in prison. After milking many people for millions of dollars and convicted of several accounts real bad things, he found himself, get this, teaching business management to prison inmates. Upon his release his alleged poverty disappeared and he is again a multi millionaire.
So here in the wilds of Borneo sit some of the boats that we all huddled around the TV to watch, the boats that gave national pride to Australia and united America. Tis a sad fate for such noble vessels. The sadder story is that of the America’s Cup itself. After this historic set of races the Cup fell victim to greed, ego and lawyers. It will never again be the premier yacht race of the world, a great loss for the us all.