Oct. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Ernesto Bertarelli brought the America's Cup back to the New York Yacht Club today, placing the silver chalice on its original pedestal for the first time since the longest winning streak in sports ended in 1983.

The billionaire yachtsman also brought along a defense of his side in a court fight brewing over control of the race between two of the world's richest men.

Bertarelli, 42, who successfully defended the Cup for landlocked Switzerland in July in the waters off Valencia, Spain, sat by the limestone fireplace in the club's Model Room explaining why he'd like to change the rules for the world's oldest sporting championship and is willing to fight for those changes in an Oct. 22 court hearing.

``When we thought of the vision of the 33rd America's Cup, a very strong underlying theme -- that maybe is not shared with some disgruntled competitors -- was to reduce cost,'' Bertarelli said. ``I think a lot of people see what we're trying to do. We have five competitors entered and more that are coming. But we're not pleasing everyone and that's unfortunate.''

Bertarelli said that his changes -- which include enlarging the boats used in the race and reducing the time between competitions to two years from four -- will make the 156-year- old event more marketable and profitable. Oracle Corp. chief Larry Ellison, one of Bertarelli's competitors, says Bertarelli is manipulating the rules in his own favor.

The two billionaires will present their cases to the Supreme Court of New York, where Golden Gate Yacht Club, home of Ellison's BMW-Oracle Racing syndicate, is suing Bertarelli. The suit says Bertarelli set up a fake Spanish yacht club under his own control to ram through unfair and unprecedented rules.

`Astonished'

``All of us are just astonished by what is taking place here,'' said Tom Ehman, head of external affairs for BMW-Oracle. ``We don't understand what was wrong with what was done last time.''

The International Sailing Federation, the sport's governing body, has almost no control over the America's Cup, which is run according to a two-page ``Deed of Gift,'' left by the original syndicate for the yacht America to the New York Yacht Club in 1857. The deed provides few specific rules beyond stipulating that the Cup shall be preserved ``for friendly competition between foreign countries.''

Because winners set the rules, the event often deteriorates into legal squabbles, like the one going on now between Bertarelli, Forbes magazine's 76th-richest person, and Ellison, Forbes' 11th-richest, said Paul Henderson, former president of the sailing federation. Such feuds diminish what should be sailing's equivalent of golf's Master's Tournament, or tennis's Wimbledon, Henderson said.

`Big Boys, Big Toys'

``Big boys and their big toys,'' Henderson said in a telephone interview. ``They bring it all down with these lawsuits and I think `What in the hell is wrong with these people?''

Bertarelli, who netted about $8.6 billion selling his family's 64.5 percent share in the drugmaker Serono SA to Merck KgaA, spent $90 million of his own money to capture the Cup from New Zealand in 2003 and scheduled the event off the coast of Valencia. In June, his Alinghi team won the best-of-nine series by five races to two in a rematch with Team New Zealand, rallying from a 2-1 deficit to take the closest contest since Australia ended the New York club's 132-year hold on the Cup 24 years ago. None of the seven races this year were decided by more than 35 seconds.

Changes Announced

Bertarelli then announced the next Cup would be held in bigger boats, rendering about 100 existing Cup yachts belonging to other syndicates obsolete, and said he wouldn't announce the new design requirements until Dec. 31, 2007, giving Alinghi a six-month head start on research and design. His syndicate also would run the challenger series and choose race officials.

``It's just so one-sided,'' Ehman said. ``It's a sham. Everyone knows it. And we're not going to put up with it.''

Bertarelli said he negotiated the changes with the first official ``challenger of record'' -- the Club Nautico Espanol de Vela -- as required by the Deed of Gift. According to Ellison's suit, that club didn't exist until days before it filed its challenge, never held a regatta and ``has simply delegated to the defender the authority to determine all of the `conditions' governing the match.''

Bertarelli said Ellison's legal challenge would delay the Cup, which he had scheduled for 2009 in Valencia, and waste public goodwill. Both sides say they have spoken in recent days and hope to avoid court, blaming each other for being unwilling to compromise.

``We tried, we communicated poorly I think, and now we're paying the cost for this,'' Bertarelli said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Aaron Kuriloff in New York at akuriloff@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 4, 2007 16:51 EDT