Larry Ellison's Team Oracle wins the America's Cup yacht race

Larry Ellison's Team Oracle wins the America's Cup yacht race ,

boat race

After cheating scandals, engineering feats and a deadly crash, the America's Cup is over, and Larry Ellison's Team Oracle has emerged victorious. The team had been in a tight race with the Emirates New Zealand team after falling behind in early rounds, trailing by a full seven points just a week ago. But Oracle has rallied in recent races, and finished the final leading the Emirates boat by a full 45 seconds.

It's the final result of Ellison's long struggle for faster, lighter boats that change sailing into something both more dangerous and more telegenic than historical yacht races. The boats in this year's cup cost between $8 and $10 million, and Ellison has plowed nearly ten times that amount into research and development for the boats. As the Oracle founder said in a recent documentary when asked if the expense was worth it to win, "it's certainly not worth $100 million to lose the America's Cup."